Unit 2 in our 5th grade social studies (which covers basically all of American history, as you can see in the 9 week plans HERE) is titled The Discovery and Founding of North America. It is a fairly quick unit, because I like to spend a lot of time researching the American Revolutionary War era, so I have to borrow time from other places. In the unit, I reference a classroom project called Colonial Living, a research book that the class collaborates on.
Student research took place in groups, and covered the following topics:
Colonial Towns: Buildings, layout, variety of towns, defenses.
Journey by Sea: How the colonists / pilgrims reached the America's, including challenges, living conditions, etc.
The 13 Colonies: A quick research on the original colonies, including founding dates, and a map of the original 13.
Crime & Punishment: The crimes that were most common, and their punishments.
Native Tribes: A quick research on the native tribes of the area, and their interactions with the colonists.
Religion in the Colonies: How religion influenced life and politics in the colonies. Also, what religion meant on a day-by-day basis to the colonists.
Colonial Food: How they grew food, and what the typical colonial meal looked like.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke: This topic fascinates many students, so I have a group take a look at its history and present some pages on it.
It was a frantic week of research and producing work. I would like to point out that it's not always about producing a fantastic, amazing work. In this case, the book came out pretty well, but some students are great artists, others not so much. There was a lot of variety in the book, and it's gotten a good response from passers by. The images below show some of the finished book. It's a great project, simple, easy, and it really promotes group synergy and team work:
This first image shows our book hanging out in the hallway by a lanyard that I looped around a metal brad. It's a simple setup, but it works.
A closeup of the cover of the book. It was "laminated" using tape.
The rest of these pictures show various pages from the book. Click any photo to view it larger:
5th grade Social Studies unit 2 is about the early American colonists and pilgrims. This unit focuses on the journey, hardships, and early society that was developed when founding the initial colonies in America. This unit is listed in my Social Studies 9 Week Plans page, and has its own Unit Page. For convenience purposes, I will post the entire text of that unit here as well:
Unit 2 of 5th grade social studies covers the discovery and founding of America, focusing heavily on the colonists and pilgrims.
For me, time is usually a focus on this unit, because I like to spend more time on the American Revolution, and the 19th and 20th centuries.
With that in mind, I provide three days of instruction on the front end, familiarizing students with the topics and major events of this time period, then I hand over the learning to my students for some project based research.
The project students work on for this unit is a whole class collaboration that is presented in book form and titled "Colonial Life." The project is done in pairs, with each group preparing two pages "textbook style" on their topic.
What I mean by textbook style is a stylized presentation like that of most textbooks, in which the content, photos, illustrations, graphs, etc. all exist in the pages together.
I do not write up any student information handout for this, and they are graded on the simple research rubric that we utilize throughout the year (access the simple research rubric in either .pdf and .doc format).
The topics that students cover in their research include:
Colonial Towns: Buildings, layout, variety of towns, defenses.
Journey by Sea: How the colonists / pilgrims reached the America's, including challenges, living conditions, etc.
The 13 Colonies: A quick research on the original colonies, including founding dates, and a map of the original 13.
Crime & Punishment: The crimes that were most common, and their punishments.
Native Tribes: A quick research on the native tribes of the area, and their interactions with the colonists.
Religion in the Colonies: How religion influenced life and politics in the colonies. Also, what religion meant on a day-by-day basis to the colonists.
Colonial Food: How they grew food, and what the typical colonial meal looked like.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke: This topic fascinates many students, so I have a group take a look at its history and present some pages on it.
I'm going to present a few links to assist teachers and students alike in research or teaching of the colonial era of American history:
America 1607: Jamestown Interactive: This fantastic interactive map on the National Geographic site, which is a companion piece to a feature the magazine did on Jamestown in 2007 titled America, Lost and Found, is the best place to start if you want students to learn about how the first colonies were built, and the challenges they faced early on.
Finally, watch these videos in succession. These are taken from the America: The Story of Us documentary series.
Again, we normally pace this unit fairly quickly. Each group of students is responsible for a two page contribution to our "Colonial Life" book. Finally, if you like how your books turn out, head over to Student Treasures, and order a few free publishing kits. This company will make a free classroom hardbound copy of the book, and your only obligation is to send home a letter to your parents asking them to buy a copy of the classroom book. There are no buying requirements, and the classroom hardbound copy is free regardless of how many parents order. It's a great opportunity that we'll be taking advantage of.
