If it's not as obvious for some, this statement should remove all doubt.
This year, I want my students to better appreciate what our boys sacrificed on the battlefields around 250 years ago. First, to simulate gunshot, everybody will gouge themselves in the thigh with an ice pick. It will hurt like the dickens, but there shouldn't be much blood. Don't worry that the exit wound will look worse than the entry. You will tear your own shirt to use as a makeshift tourniquet (Did I mention that you need to wear old clothes for this activity? There may be a little mess.).
Once the sun sets, we will limp out into the playground and lie face down in a low drainage area weeds. Hopefully, we will conduct this activity after it has rained enough to be muddy. We should be able to find a shallow puddle to lie in and allow mud to soak into our hair and clothes.
The wound in you leg will likely throb, but with every heartbeat, you can be assured you are still living. Imagine one of the Red Coats will find you for sure. With some fireworks the teacher has stored since July being shot in strategic locations around the playground (We'll need some parent volunteers.). As the fireworks explode, they quickly became artillery shells of a different kind. Some will be small arms fire while others are British cannon. They will explode all around you in every direction, filling your ears with their popping and booming. You should smell the sulfurous gun powder, and your eyes may sting with the smoke of battle.
For an hour you will lie on the battlefield, soaking in the atmosphere. Force yourself to lie there, unmoving, expecting for it to end, praying for mercy, begging for it to be over before hobbling away, finding a nearby farmhouse, and begging for quarter, but you can't yet: the shooting just will not not stop. The ground holds the heat of the day, and the pulsing from your leg wound will radiate throughout your body all the way into your head.
Your thoughts will swim - back to your early days - back to the days of hunting with an old grandfather, using your rifles for a different purpose: to provide food for your family. Do you dare move? Are the Tories and their British friends far enough away that you can at least roll over? You need to see the sky. You'll want to look at the stars - to make sure they still shine.
After a while, the explosions will dwindle, becoming further apart, farther away. As the skirmish rolls away, you'll risk stumbling from the field. Step carefully over the playground equipment and leftover playground balls - your fellow soldiers, new friends who have fallen to musket fire and cannonballs.
You'll gain a much better appreciation for the reality of the Revolutionary battles, fought by farmers and merchants to win the freedoms we enjoy in this nation. Just a word of caution: get that wound taken care of before infection sets in (You don't want to face Revolutionary surgery.).
For the next lesson, get your earplugs ready: we're going to learn to play Yankee Doodle on our new classroom fife set.