ALEX Resources

Title: Students Discover the Thirteen Colonies
Description: The students will participate in an activity which involves three different stations around the room. These stations will have a different basket which will have a number of artifacts, pictures, and people so that the students will be able to organize the new content. Each station will represent the northern, middle, and southern colonies.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: "Tools of the Trade"
Description: Students will research tools that were used in Colonial tradeshops to determine how the tools were used during the 18th century. During the lesson, the students will have the opportunity to work together with their peers to conduct their research and to share their opinion with their classmates.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 6: Describe colonial economic life and labor systems in the Americas.

Title: Invasive Plants
Description: Invasive plants are non-native plants that grow in an environment that has no native diseases, parasites, or predators. This allows them to grow rapidly and be destructive to native plants.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: Using Primary Sources to Uncover the True Thanksgiving Story
Description: This is an interdisciplinary inquiry-based lesson that focuses on critical thinking.  Students are introduced to the true story of the first Thanksgiving with the reading of a NCSS Notable Trade Book Thanksgiving:  The True Story.  Working in cooperative learning groups, students use primary sources to evaluate the accuracy of the Thanksgiving story currently told in many history textbooks.  This lesson teaches students the importance of using primary sources to construct accurate understandings of historical events.  Extensions in this lesson also integrate science and technology.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 6: Describe colonial economic life and labor systems in the Americas.

Title: Colonial Network News: Ben Franklin Flies a Kite
Description: The students will create a news program about Benjamin Franklin and life in colonial times. The students will work in groups of complete research and prepare a video presentation. Students will utilize books and various web sites to complete their research.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: Life in Colonial America
Description: This lesson presents an explanation about who the early colonists were and why they came to America. Students will explore their lives and the economy by navigating the Internet. Students will conclude the lesson by completing a WebQuest about colonial life.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 6: Describe colonial economic life and labor systems in the Americas.

Title: The Lost Colony of Roanoke
Description: In this lesson students will build on their knowledge of the lost colony of Roanoke. Using the Internet, students will research theories about the disappearance of the colonists and use what they have learned to write and perform a play about an assigned theory. They will incorporate technology by recording the plays and editing them using movie editing software.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: Political Cartoon Analysis
Description: Students will review and discuss how to evaluate the symbols and related meanings of political cartoons. The project will involve analyzing a current political cartoon, determining its meaning, and presenting the information to the class.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: Washington, DC Report
Description: Students will utilize the Internet to complete the DC Report during their study of Colonial American history and Washington, DC. They will demonstrate their understanding of the material through a written report using the three modes of writing. (This report may be given in its entirety or it may be broken up into sections.)
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: The Chesapeake Bay Watershed: Past, Present, and Future
Description: In this Xpeditions lesson, students conduct research on the Chesapeake Bay, from Captain John Smith's explorations of Native American settlements in the early seventeenth century to the present, and examine how these changes over time can help illuminate the interrelationships between people and places. They then apply a similar approach to their local areas. Through an examination of a timeline of change, students make connections between the present interaction with place and its future, and consider ways that they can help shape the future course of both the Chesapeake Bay watershed and their own communities.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: American Colonial Life in the Late 1700s: Distant Cousins
Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students explore daily life and its influences in the late 1700s for two families in different colonies: Delaware and Massachusetts. Students use maps to consider the historical and geographical factors in the development of different colonies, research life in two such colonies by investigating artifacts, and write letters to each other from the perspectives of children in the Ipswich, Massachusetts colony and the Mill Creek, Delaware colony.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 9: Explain how inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation led to the creation and eventual ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

Title: Nomads: Where Boundaries Move
Description: In this Xpeditions lesson, students explore nomadic pastoralism. Focusing on Central Asia, students investigate the way humans have adapted to regions that do not sustain communities through agriculture and the influence this has both on how they live and on how they view the boundaries of their homes.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 13: Describe social and economic influences on United States' expansion prior to World War I.

Title: Where I Come From
Description: In this lesson, from EDSITEment, students take research into their heritage a step beyond the construction of a family tree, traveling through cyberspace to find out what's happening in their ancestral homelands today and explore their sense of connection to these places in their past.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 10: Describe political, social, and economic events between 1803 and 1860 that led to the expansion of the territory of the United States, including the War of 1812, the Indian Removal Act, the Texas-Mexican War, the Mexican-American War, and the Gold Rush of 1849.

Title: What They Left Behind: Early Multi-National Influences in the United States
Description: The four lessons in this unit, from EDSITEment, are designed to help students make connections between European voyages of discovery, colonial spheres of influence, and various aspects of American culture. They map 18th-century Europe's influence on what is now the U.S., list remnants of European influence that still remain today, and connect marks of European influence with specific explorers.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 6: Describe colonial economic life and labor systems in the Americas.

Title: Jamestown Changes
Description: In this lesson from EDSITEment, students study census data showing the names and occupations of early settlers of the English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, to discern how life changed in the Jamestown settlement in the first few years after it was founded. The goals of this lesson plan are to gain experience gathering information from primary sources, to examine changes over time in conditions at Jamestown as revealed in primary documents from early years in the colony, and to organize a statement of findings.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 6: Describe colonial economic life and labor systems in the Americas.

Title: How It All Started!
Digital Tool: Interactive Tool for The First Thanksgiving
Web Address URL: http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.
Digital Tool Description: This interactive tool provides videos that embark on the journey of the pilgrims. Students can explore the experiences and historical significance of the pilgrim's voyage, settlement, and first harvest celebration.

Title: What Is a Cornucopia?
Description: While a cornucopia snack is an excellent way to honor the fall season, the traditional cornucopia isn't completely edible. Filled with pumpkins and gourds, nuts and berries, the cornucopia makes a beautiful centerpiece., But have you ever wondered what it represents? Get ready for a history lesson in harvest as we toot the horn of plenty.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: Explore PA History
Description: Demonstrates the rich historical importance of Pennsylvania via maps, timelines, essays, primary documents, and lesson plans.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] US11 (11) 5: Evaluate the impact of social changes and the influence of key figures in the United States from World War I through the 1920s, including Prohibition, the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the Scopes Trial, limits on immigration, Ku Klux Klan activities, the Red Scare, the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Migration, the Jazz Age, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, W. C. Handy, and Zelda Fitzgerald. (Alabama) [A.1.a., A.1.b., A.1.d., A.1.f., A.1.i., A.1.j., A.1.k.]

Title: Lydia Dickman's Sampler
Description: By the 1700s, samplers depicting alphabets and numerals were worked by young women to learn the basic needlework skills needed to operate the family household. The earliest dated sampler in the museum's collection was made in 1735 by Lydia Dickman of Boston, Massachusetts. By the late 1700s and early 1800s, schools or academies for well-to-do young women flourished, and more elaborate pieces with decorative motifs such as verses, flowers, houses, religious, pastoral, and/or mourning scenes were being stitched. The parents of these young women proudly displayed their embroideries as showpieces of their work, talent, and status.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: The Choate Family: American Colonists
Description: In the mid-1760s, Abraham Choate had a 10-room house built in Ipswich, Massachusetts, for his wife, Sarah, and their growing family. Students can learn about the Choate family by investigating a room from their house, a deed from 1772, and artifacts that a family like the Choate's would have owned. The Choates were the first family to live in the house that is the focus of Within These Walls , an online exhibition from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] US10 (10) 2: Compare regional differences among early New England, Middle, and Southern colonies regarding economics, geography, culture, government, and American Indian relations. [A.1.a., A.1.b., A.1.d., A.1.g., A.1.i.]

Title: What Is a Cornucopia?
Description: While a cornucopia snack is an excellent way to honor the fall season, the traditional cornucopia isn't completely edible. Filled with pumpkins and gourds, nuts and berries, the cornucopia makes a beautiful centerpiece., But have you ever wondered what it represents? Get ready for a history lesson in harvest as we toot the horn of plenty.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.

Title: Major Languages of the Americas
Description: Activity. Students identify major languages spoken in the Americas, map them, and discuss the relationship between the distribution of languages and the colonial history of the countries.
Standard(s):
[SS2010] USS5 (5) 5: Explain the early colonization of North America and reasons for settlement in the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies, including geographic features, landforms, and differences in climate among the colonies.