My treasure boxes are somewhat different from the ones I've been reading about on here. I have three separate plastic totes with slightly different things in each one. All of them have at least four or more books and several objects that would have historical value, along with pictures from either the Library of Congress and/or the National Archives. But how they differ is that one box is geared toward the left brained student, another is geared toward the right brained child and the third is set-up as a mystery solving box that all students (both right and left brained of learners) are required to try and figure out the problems/mysteries in their own unique learning styles.
Now for details about the left-brained box. I have a lot of concrete, factual information. And the question booklets/worksheets in there are totally fashioned for the cut-and-dry, one way only answer. I have several time lines, many different photographs, and a list of the biological information about some of our founding fathers in there along with pictures of them.
The right-brained box has personal stories about significant historical figures and requires the students to be much more creative. The questions I have in this box require more opinionated answers. I also ask the students to create illustrations with some style when responding to the questions. One example question from this box is, "If you were trying to explain what someone dressed like in the late 1700's how would you do it? Draw/design, label and creatively describe your answer." All of my right brained learners loved this particular question. They put a lot of time into their answers and really came up with some fantastic drawings that were very accurate and creative.
My third box has several different items in it, and there are open ended "mysteries" attached to each piece. The students are required to solve the mystery in their own way.
As far as the two books, "Signing Their Lives Away and Signing their Rights Away, I really enjoyed reading both of them. The information is delivered in an extremely easy way for anyone to really comprehend. The part that I personally enjoyed the most was the titles they gave to each signers of the Declaration of Independence and the little biological information under their titles. It helped me better understand who they really were before I started reading a more detailed description of them. I also found it interesting how a lot of them were just your average, ordinary man. . .merchants, planters, land speculators, etc.
