Before the winter holidays we visited family in Tennessee and we were happy to hear that a presidential home was within an hour’s drive. We had been trying to focus on presidents up through the Civil War, but it was convenient to be able to visit this home while we were here. Because of the great interpreters at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site we were able to visit the homesite and explore the visitor center and come away with a better understanding of what happened in America during the time of ‘reconstruction’ and what happened when congress impeached him. This did a great job of tying together the end of the Civil War curriculum, and we can now check off the 17th President from our list of presidential homes.
We learned about the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and the last of which will help to set up a platform for teaching about suffrage in the future.
