Invent Like Ben

Companion to A Ben of All Trades: The Most Inventive Boyhood of Benjamin Franklin

1)

Draw a cartoon of an event in Ben’s childhood

2) Compose an email to Ben

3) Make and fly your own kite

4) Write a journal entry as if you are Ben as a child

5) Play the “Who Am I” game

6) Create your own almanac

Draw a cartoon based upon an event in the childhood of Benjamin Franklin. One example might be an illustration of young Ben making a durable kite strong enough to pull him from shore to shore on Boston’s Mill Pond. 

Historians have written that of all the American Revolutionary heroes Benjamin Franklin would fit most easily and comfortably with everyday life in the 21st century. Compose an email to a very modern (and perhaps young) Ben Franklin. List five questions you would like to ask him. To earn an A+ grade, pretend to be Dr. Franklin and write replies he might share. 

Make a kite that serves as a tribute to Benjamin Franklin. What icons and symbols highlight his childhood or adult life? When it is safe to do so, go FLY A KITE!

Benjamin Franklin could read and write at a surprisingly early age. Write a journal entry that he might have penned when he was just a boy growing up in Boston. After reading A Ben of All Trades: The Most Inventive Boyhood of Benjamin Franklin, create a journal passage that describes the day he invented paddles and fins to help him swim across Mill Pond with greater speed. 

Collect three to five facts about the life of Benjamin Franklin. Write them in a journal. Next, use the facts to create a “Who Am I?” game to be shared with others. A “Who Am I?” biography game might read as follows.

Who am I?

 I was born in Boston in 1706.

 I taught myself to be a strong swimmer.

 I founded the first lending library in the American colonies in 1731.

 I invented the lightening rod.

 I invented bifocals.

 Who Am I? 

Almanacs were both popular and profitable in the 18th-century. They featured the year’s calendar including important dates, observations, and holidays, tidal schedules, weather predictions, times of the rising and setting sun and moon, and the best time of year to plant crops. Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac was unique as the annual editions (1733-1758) included the printer’s pithy sayings: “Haste makes waste” and “Never leave till tomorrow what you can do today.” Invite children to design their own modern-day editions of Poor Richard’s Almanac. What contemporary information will they include on the leaf pages of their original almanacs? Do they know the possible future schedule of their favorite athletic team? List the birthdays of family and friends. Can they think of clever words that readers might include for do-it-yourself greeting cards for birthdays and holidays? What recipes can they include that are their favorite homemade meals? What are popular Internet sites? List homeschooling activities that are creative? What cover designs, cut from cardboard stock, will they choose to make their almanacs attractive? Children can also wrap their front and back covers in colorful wrapping paper. In Franklin’s lifetime, printers had to create almanacs one at a time. Today, using home computers and printers, children can easily make duplicates of their finished almanacs. They can make duplicate copies of their almanacs and mail them electronically or by land post to much loved relatives and friends