Read Kansas! Intermediate - I-7 Life on the Trails
This lesson designed for fourth grade focuses on life and hardships on both the Oregon-California and the Santa Fe Trails. Students will read two Read Kansas! cards that are reminiscences by trail travelers. Students will complete a vocabulary worksheet to help define new words used in the primary source documents. Students will use the Read Kansas! cards to complete a worksheet about the costs and benefits of traveling on the trails. This lesson is designed to take three class periods but can be adjusted to meet individual classroom needs.
To view a PDF of the front and back, click on the card
Kansas History, Government and Social Studies Standards:
Standard #1: Choices have consequences.
- 1.1: The student will analyze the context under which choices are made and draw conclusions about the motivations and goals of the decision-makers.
Standard #5: Relationships among people, places, ideas, and environments are dynamic.
- 5.1: The student will recognize and evaluate dynamic relationships that impact lives in communities, states, and nations.
Kansas College and Career Ready Standards:
- RI 4.1: The student refers to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
- RI 4.4: The student determines the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words or phrases in a text relevant to a grade 4 topic or subject area.