History Plays for the Grammar Grades

Copyrighted, 1922, Mary Ella Lyng
To MISS CORA GALLAGHER Principal of McKinley School In appreciation of a pleasant association and many kindnesses.
The play idea will always appeal to the minds of children. History, so often thought to be a dry subject, is made a live wide awake game when the pupils live the parts. The great men and women of history are made real to them.
This method has been worked out by the pupils in the fifth grade in the McKinley School in San Francisco and found to be most successful.
The chief characters in Mace's Beginners History, the California State Text, have been dramatized. The children read the story and study by outline. Then with the help of the teacher the important events are made into a play.
Much outside reading is encouraged. This awakens an interest in good reading and an ability to do independent studying.
The lives of great men and women represent great things. Studying about these people is an inspiration to the children for the bigger and nobler things of life.
Lives of great men, all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And departing leave behind us— Footprints on the sands of time.
— Longfellow .
Mary Ella Lyng

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, more than four hundred and fifty years ago. Genoa was a rich town on the Mediterranean Sea. She had trading routes to India, China and Japan.