Before video games. Before toy stores. Before batteries — children in 1776 made their own fun, and it was really good fun. Games of 1776 takes students back 250 years to discover how colonial American children played, building real toys from buttons, string, fabric scraps, and cardboard, then playing the same games played during the founding of the United States — from marble matches at Valley Forge to the spinning whirligig to the lawn games that became modern baseball and bowling. A button and a piece of string became an afternoon of play. A circle drawn in chalk became a competition. That spirit of resourcefulness and imagination is exactly what this unit brings to life.