Unit+of+Instruction


 * //__ Title of Unit: Colonial America from 1500 - 1754 __//**

Author: Paul Becker

Primary Subject (elementary) or Course (secondary): Social Studies Grade Level: 5th

Introduction: This unit is about life and the events in the Colonial period of American history between 1500 and 1754. The purpose of teaching this unit is to help students understand the beginnings of our country and how we got to where we are. Students will learn that people and events in the past helped to shape the country that we live in today.

Unit Objectives (include 4 or 5): You can see where this Unit Falls in our Scope and Sequence here:
 * The students will be able to understand the chronology of important events that occurred and the people involved during this period
 * The students will be able to organize these events and people and show how they are related historically
 * The students will be able to understand the power and influence that different religious and philosophical ideas had during this period. 
 * The students will be able to understand how the different advances in science and technology and how the economic activities developed, changed and affected our society during this time period 

Time Required: Two weeks   Lesson 1

Title of lesson: Tour of some important towns and settlements in Colonial America

Description of lesson: This lesson is a Google Earth Tour of some of the important towns and settlements that we have learned about in this unit. The students will take the tour and answer a series of questions.

Assignment (homework): Students, please open the Google Earth Tour titled "Colonial America 1500-1754" and take the tour. Attached is a quiz that you will take as you go through the tour. All of the answers are either in the information, pictures or websites along the tour. Make sure you click on each "pinpoint" at each location as some will lead you to pictures. Also be sure to click on the links to websites at each location in the popup. Have fun!



Resources/materials needed: Google Earth downloaded and internet access



Lesson 2

Title of lesson: Life in Colonial America

Description of lesson: This lesson is especially about what life was like for kids their age in Colonial America. We will be using letterpop to do a newsletter about a typical day in the life of a kid their age in Colonial America. This tool will make the lesson more interesting by allowing them to use their own creativity and choice in how they design their newsletter. I would like them to either choose a "typical" day or their favorite holiday and use their notes and do research on what these days were like for kids their age including living arrangements, clothing, chores, school, work, etc.

Assignment (homework or in-class): Complete the following Scavenger Hunt 

 Resources/materials needed: []

Lesson 3

Title of lesson: Science and technology advances

Description of lesson: Students will learn about the technological advances in the newspaper and other industries throughout this era.

Assignment (homework or in-class): Use the formats you find in "Colonial America Newspapers" website to come up with a newspaper of your own in your groups. We will be presenting these in class.

Resources/materials needed:  [|Colonial America Newspapers] - Information about the beginning of newspapers in the colonies, beginning with the first one published in 1690 (Benjamin Harris' Publick Occurrences), which lasted only one issue before being suppressed. 

Lesson 4

Title of lesson: Economics

Description of lesson: This lesson is about the economics of the time. We will be relating the South Sea Bubble Crisis of 1720 to current economic times.

Assignment (homework or in-class): Please go to  <span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif';">[|The Bubble Project] - Collaborative project on the South Sea Bubble Crisis (the stock market crash of 1720), which impacted lives in England, and the American Colonies. You will be working in your groups and we will be going through what you will need to do as we go.

<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman';"> http://www.proteacher.com/cgi-bin/outsidesite.cgi?id=13942&external=http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/score_lessons/market_to_market/&original=http://www.proteacher.com/090021.shtml&title=A%20Study%20of%20the%20Colonial%20Economy%20from%201600%20to%201750 - this is all about working in the Colonial period

Resources/materials needed: The Bubble Project website.

Lesson 5

Title of lesson: Time Line

Description of lesson: This is the class timeline for this Lesson Plan of the instruction. It will be ongoing throughout the unit. Every time we talk about a new event during this era, one of the students will get to "add the event" on this online timeline. This tool will change the learning environment by making it more collaborative and building on prior events. It will also be great because all students will have access to it at any time. I would also like to have students do a small presentation on the event that they add to the timeline. These presentations may be added to the wikipage in another area.

Assignment (homework or in-class): Do some extra research on the event you are adding to the timeline so you can tell the class more about what we learned. This presentation will be 5 minutes and should tell us some things we do not already know about the event. Resources/materials needed: Colonial America Timeline from 1500-1754 media type="custom" key="3296324"

Lesson 6

Title of lesson: Important people

Description of lesson: This lesson is all about the important people during the Colonial Era. This, too, would be an ongoing and collaborative lesson as we learn about new people who were important and made an impact during this time. As we learn about new people one student would get to "add them" to the class slideshow. This tool will change the environment as we would review the people already in the slideshow as we added new ones. It would be collaborative and we would build on and review prior knowledge. We will also have short presentations from students about the person as we add them to the timeline.

Assignment (homework or in-class): 1) Do some extra research on the person you are adding to the slideshow. Do a five minute presentation on them and try to tell us some things we have not learned about them in class.

media type="custom" key="3296466"

Assignment 2) Listen to this Vocaroo for directions on this assignment. []

Resources/Materials needed: Website access.

Lesson 7

Title of lesson: Native Americans/Thanksgiving

Description of lesson: In this lesson, students will learn about the "First Thanksgiving" and some Native American culture by listening to "Mr. Becker's Colonial Home Companion" podcasts. They will create their own podcast about their own Thanksgiving experiences.

Assignment (homework or in-class): Students will create a 3 - 5 minute podcast relating an interesting Thanksgiving experience of their own or what Thanksgiving means to them.

Resources/materials needed: Audacity and/or Vocaroo downloaded

media type="file" key="Colonial Home Companion Ep1.mp3" This is Episode One of Mr. Becker's Weekly podcast: Colonial Home Companion.

media type="file" key="Colonial Home Companion Ep1.mp3" This is Episode Two of Mr. Becker's Weekly Podcast: Colonial Home Companion.

media type="file" key="Colonial Home Companion EP3.mp3"This is Episode Three of Mr. Becker's Weekly Podcast: Colonial Home Companion.

Lesson 8

Title of lesson: Philosophical Ideas: Slavery

For this lesson, students will be working on group research projects. These projects are designed to help students develop thir problem solving, critical thinking, communication and presentation skills.

Assignment (homework or in-class): You will find your research project assignment here: []

Resources/materials needed: Check out this Shelfari for some books that may help you in this assignment! []

Lesson 9

Title of lesson: Poor Richard’s Almanac

Description of lesson: This lesson is about the importance of almanacs in this era and what they were. We will be concentrating on Poor Richard's Almanac.

Assignment (homework or in-class): You will be creating an online almanac of your own by posting it to our class wikipage. It will need to include at least five topics and be similar to Poor Richard's Almanac but be based on modern information. Don't forget to cite your references!

Resources/materials needed: [] which shows actual pages from the original Poor Richard’s almanac

Lesson 10

Title of lesson: Jamestown vs Plymouth plantations

Description of lesson: This lesson is all about the first settlements in America and how they were different. I will be assessing the students' understanding of the concepts in this lesson through multiple games of Jeopardy. By using this tool, the students will have more fun learning about these two settlements and have better retention. This will be a competitive game and will also build community through teamwork. We will play the Jeopardy more than once so that the students can learn more and more each time. I would like the kids to create the game themselves. Each student will have to come up with a question in each category, then I will decide which ones to use. Assignment (homework or in-class): Do some research and use your notes and handouts to come up with a question for each of the five Jeopardy categories. Every student will have at least ONE of their questions on the final board.

Resources/materials needed: []

Lesson 2: Animoto! For this lesson, I want you to view each of the following animotos of the Jamestown Plantation and the Plymouth Plantation. After viewing them, I want you to think about which one you would have rather lived on and why. Dig deep! We have discussed all of these photos in class so you should be very familiar with each one. I want you to think about and come up with at least five reasons why living on one of these plantations would be better for you and why. This should get you thinking about what life was really like in these two quite different places.

Jamestown? media type="custom" key="3468344" Or Plymouth Plantation????

media type="custom" key="3468352"