Early Elementary Resources:
FULL UNIT RESOURCES including printables by GRADE range
Notebooking and Lapbook Resources:
Lower grades (k - 2)
Grade 3 - 6
Middle to Upper (ages 11 - 14 or grades 6 - 9) - my kids have done American History 2 years in a row so we will be searching hard for quality materials for this age
OUR FAVORITE Interactive Activities for this Unit by TOPIC
The 2nd Great Awakening
Arising in the 1800s, it was one of the most significant occurrences in the history of American religion. Countless people were converted and many churches were changed and revived. Not only affecting religion, the movement influenced many other aspects such as prison reform, the women's rights movement, abolishment of slavery, advancements in literature, and reform in education. The temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order. The abolition movement fought to abolish slavery in the United States. The women's rights movement grew from female abolitionists who realized that they too could fight for their own political rights. In addition to these causes, reforms touched nearly every aspect of daily life,
such as restricting the use of tobacco and dietary and dress reforms. Women's roles in the church were greatly affected and they deeply encouraged the religious revival, setting up many organizations and charities.
People to know during the 2nd Great Awakening
The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, by horseback, using a series of relay stations. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days. From April 3, 1860, to October 1861, it became the West's most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the country.
The youngest rider was 11.
Here is a site with biographies of the riders.
There are many crafts to add hands-on fun.
Multi Media Resources
Little House on the Prairie resources
NEW RESOURCE The Legacy of Laura Ingalls
- and more...
~ Eclectic Education has a wonderful Little House Unit Study page on Squidoo that includes all sorts of Little House activity pages, printables and links.
ENTIRE Little House Series on Audiobook
I love audio books. After dinner we get our comfy clothing on and pull out or sketchbooks or watercolors, I get to enjoy drawing, coloring or even hand sewing with the children as we listen together.
MADE FOR TV SERIES on the INGALLs. We enjoyed it because it didn't have too much drama. Brought out some of the hardship. It doesn't go along with the book but was useful to visualize the time period before we began the study.
~ Little House Books offers lots of activities for teachers and librarians, plus fun sections for kids. Examples include Little House recipes, word searches, crafts and extensive classroom activity guides for teachers.
~ Blanchard Elementary offers a large Little House on the Prairie page full of resources such as author sites, timelines, discussion questions, teacher resources, recipes, crafts, links and more.
~ Little House Teacher Guides has a very thorough series of lesson plans and resources that cover each chapter of four Little House books, loosely geared towards 3rd through 5th grade. The site contains chapter-by-chapter lesson plans in all subjects for Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek and The Long Winter. Subjects include math, science, language arts and social studies. Typical activities include researching the current value of the horses and ponies that Pa traded, observing the effect of hot and warm water on ice, and estimating the weight of an ox compared to a car, people and other objects and then finding out the actual weight. Note: not all chapters have been completed in the series.
~ Home Ed magazine offers On the Little House Trail, one homeschooling mother's account of visiting all of the home sites mentioned in the books with her family.
~ Mama Scout offers a wonderful blog post about Unschooling Little House on the Prairie.
~ Chasing Cheerios has lots of sweet little Camp Laura activities archived that are wonderful inspiration for doing your own Little House activities.
frontiersmen and pioneers
I created a playlist in YOUTUBE of my favorite Westward Expansion / Pioneer multi media videos for my kids ages 7 - 11.
3 Minute Video reenactment of Narcissa Whitman
Native American and the Trail of Tears
for those tribes associated with the Trail of Tears--the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole
This quote I heard on another video.
"Some say that the Cherokee who marched were silent. The tears that were shed where those who -coming out of their houses saw the march and wept. Those witnesses pleaded with the soldiers."
List of Links to Online Games
Mission US: Cherokee
4-6 American History