Objective 1:
Describe and explain the growth and development of the early American colonies.

Activities

Make a Globe
In this unit students will develop map making skills, learn new vocabulary words by creating a globe, and finally, map out routes taken by early explorers.
 
The globe can be made the traditional paper maché way, or for a quicker faster way, made by using a punch ball found at most dollar stores, or at Oriental Trading Company. To create the globe, inflate the punch ball to desired size. When globe has been created, students will divide the globe into different hemispheres (labeling as they go). They will then create and label latitude and longitude lines, starting with the Prime Meridian and Equator. To do this, have students cut a piece of string to go completely around the globe, leaving about an inch on each end from which to work with. Cover the string with chalk, tighten the string around the globe, gently flip it onto the balloon to create a temporary line. Then trace the temporary line with a permanent marker. After latitude and longitude lines have been drawn and labeled, students will trace the seven continents on the globe. (To make this easier, the teacher might want to cut out continent shapes from cardstock to be used for tracing). After the globe is completed, students will develop a historical understanding of the early explorers by researching and tracing these explorer’s routes on the globe.

 

Latitude and Longitude Objects
Give each student a map with longitude and latitude grids. Have one or two students bring an object from somewhere in the world each day. The student has to look up the longitude and latitude of where their object is from. The student tells the class the object’s longitude and latitude and the class has to find the location on their map and mark it. It’s a great review for longitude and latitude!

Lesson Plans

• Maps Through Time
  In this activity students will analyze explorers' maps and put them in chronologically order. They will then learn about the major explorers and the routes that these explorers took.

Indicators:

1. Using maps -- including pre-1492 maps -- and other geographic tools, locate and analyze the routes used by the explorers.
2. Explain how advances in technology lead to an increase in exploration (e.g. ship technology)
3. Identify explorers who came to the Americas and the nations they represented.
4. Determine reasons for the exploration of North America (e.g., religious, economic, political).
5. Compare the geographic and cultural differences between the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies (e.g., religious, economic, political).
6. Analyze contributions of American Indian people to the colonial settlements.

Objective 2:
Assess the global impact of cultural and economic diffusion as a result of colonization.

Lesson Plans

• Slavery
  After learning about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, students will participate in the Underground railroad experiment on the National Geographic web site.

Indicators:

1. Describe the cultural and economic impacts that occurred as a result of trade between North America and other markets (e.g., arts, language, ideas, the beginning and expansion of the slave trade, new agricultural markets).
2. Analyze and explain the population decline in American Indian populations (i.e. disease, warfare, displacement).

Objective 3:
Distinguish between the rights and responsibilities held by different groups of people during the colonial period.

Lesson Plans

• Mayflower Compact
  After analyzing the Mayflower Compact students will use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast Colony Constitutions.

Indicators:

1. Compare the varying degrees of freedom held by different groups (e.g. American Indians, landowners, women, indentured servants, enslaved people).
2. Explain how early leaders established the first colonial governments (e.g. Mayflower compact, charters).
3. Describe the basic principles and purposes of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Objective 1:
Describe how the movement toward revolution culminated in a Declaration of Independence.

Lesson Plans

• Taxation without Representation
  Students will learn about the Boston Tea Party, how taxes impact people's lives and where tax money goes.

Indicators:

1. Explain the role of events that led to declaring independence (e.g., French and Indian War, Stamp Act, Boston Tea Party).
2. Analyze arguments both for and against declaring independence using primary sources from Loyalist and patriot perspectives.
3. Explain the content and purpose for the Declaration of Independence.

Objective 2:
Evaluate the Revolutionary War’s impact on self-rule.

Lesson Plans

• Revolutionary War
  After researching the time period around the Revolutionary War, students should understand the how's and why's behind the Revolution.

Indicators:

1. Plot a time line of the key events of the Revolutionary War.
2. Profile citizens who rose to greatness as leaders.
3. Assess how the Revolutionary War changed the way people thought about their own rights.
4. Explain how the winning of the war set in motion a need for a new government that would serve the needs of the new states.

Objective 1:
Assess the underlying principles of the US Constitution as the framework for the United States' form of government, a compound constitutional republic.

Lesson Plans

• How a Bill Becomes a Law
  After completing several activities students will be able to explain how a bill becomes a law.

Indicators:

1. Recognize ideas from documents used to develop the Constitution (e.g. Magna Carta, Iroquois Confederacy, Articles of Confederation, Virginia Plan).
2. Analyze goals outlined in the Preamble.
3. Distinguish between the role of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the government.
4. Explain the process of passing a law.
5. Describe the concept of checks and balances.
6. Discover the basis for the patriotic and citizenship traditions we have today (i.e. Pledge of Allegiance, flag etiquette, voting).

Objective 2:
Assess how the US Constitution has been amended and interpreted over time, and the impact these amendments have had on the rights and responsibilities of citizens of the United States.

Lesson Plans

• Bill of Rights
  Students will investigate one of the amendments to the Constitution to find out how it was important for the time, how it protects citizens and how it applies to our current needs.

Indicators:

1. Explain the significance of the Bill of Rights.
2. Identify how the rights of selected groups have changed and how the Constitution reflects those changes (e.g. women, enslaved people).
3. Analyze the impact of the Constitution on their lives today (e.g. freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition).

Objective 1:
Investigate the significant events during America’s expansion and the roles people played.

Lesson Plans

• The Trail of Tears and the Forced Relocation of the Cherokee Nation
  This National Park Service lesson plan commemorates the removal of the Cherokee and the paths that 17 Cherokee detachments followed westward. It also promotes a greater awareness of the Trail's legacy and the effects of the United States' policy of American Indian removal not only on the Cherokee, but also on other tribes, primarily the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole.
• History Detectives 5th Grade Standard IV Object. 1
  Students will use primary source materials to investigate significant events in American History of the 19th Century.

Indicators:

1. Identify key reasons why people move and the traits necessary for survival.
2. Examine causes and consequences of important events in the United States expansion (e.g. Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark expedition, treaties with American Indians, Homestead Act, Trail of Tears, California Gold Rush).
3. Compare the trails that were important during westward expansion (e.g. Oregon, Mormon, Spanish, California).
4. Assess the impact of expansion on native inhabitants of the west.

Objective 2:
Assess the geographic, cultural, political, and economic divisions between regions that contributed to the Civil War.

Lesson Plans

• History Detectives 5th Grade Standard IV Object. 2
  Students will use primary source materials to investigate the economy, physical geography, and cultural aspects of the Northern States and the Southern States prior to the Civil War.

Indicators:

1. Describe the impact of physical geography on the cultures of the northern and southern regions (e.g. industrial resources, agriculture, climate).
2. Compare how cultural and economic differences of the North and South led to tensions.
3. Identify the range of individual responses to the growing political conflicts between the North and South (e.g. states rights advocates, abolitionists, slaveholders, enslaved people).

Objective 3:
Evaluate the course of events of the Civil War and its impact both immediate and long-term.

Lesson Plans

• History Detectives 5th Grade Standard IV Object. 3
  Students will use primary source materials to investigate significant historical events during the American Civil War.

Indicators:

1. Identify the key ideas, events, and leaders of the Civil War using primary sources (e.g. Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, news accounts, photographic records, diaries).
2. Contrast the impact of the war on individuals in various regions (e.g. North, South, West).
3. Explain how the Civil War helped forge ideas of national identity.
4. Examine the difficulties of reconciliation within the nation.

Objective 4:
Understand the impact of major economic forces at work in the post-Civil War.

Lesson Plans

• History Detectives 5th Grade
  Students will use primary source materials to investigate significant events in Post-Civil War American History of the 19th Century.

Indicators:

1. Assess how the free-market system in the United States serves as an engine of change and innovation.
2. Describe the wide-ranging impact of the Industrial Revolution (e.g. inventions, industries, innovations).
3. Evaluate the roles new immigrants played in the economy of this time.

Objective 1:
Describe the role of the United States during World War I, The Great Depression, and World War II.

Lesson Plans

• Impact of World War I on the United States
  After reading about World War I, students will decide which event had the most impact on the United States.

Indicators:

1. Review the impact of World War I on the United States.
2. Summarize the consequences of the Great Depression on the United States (e.g. mass migration, the New Deal).
3. Analyze how the United States’ involvement in World War II led to its emergence as a superpower.

Objective 2:
Assess the impact of social and political movements in recent United States history.

Lesson Plans

• Social Movements of the 20th Century
  Students will select a social or political movement of the 20th century (e.g. woman's movement, civil rights movement) to research and share what they learned with their classmates.

Indicators:

1. Identify major social movements of the 20th century (e.g. the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, child labor reforms).
2. Identify leaders of social and political movements

Objective 3:
Evaluate the role of the United States as a world power.

Indicators:

1. Assess differing points of view on the role of the US as a world power (e.g. influencing the spread of democracy, supporting the rule of law, advocating human rights, promoting environmental stewardship).
2. Identify a current issue facing the world and propose a role the United States could play in being part of a solution (e.g. genocide, child labor, civil rights, education, public health, environmental protections, suffrage, economic disparities).