If You Lived in Colonial Times

Plot:
In this nonfiction text, McGovern provides information about the lifestyles of people who lived during the colonial era (1565-1776), including what they did for work, what the children learned in school, the type of clothes they wore, the food they harvested and ate, and the range of farm chores they did every day using simple tools. The author begins each page with a question about lifestyle in the colonial era, such as: What kind of food would you eat in colonial times? What did colonial people wear? What did boys and girls learn in school?

Problems identified by students:

Transporting water and watering gardens is difficult
The water is too dirty to drink
Picking vegetables is a time-consuming task

Solutions designed by students:

Garden watering system using central place to dump buckets of water and tubes for distribution
Filtration system for removing dirt from water
Hinged vegetable picker with a long handle

Grade:
3rd