Grade Level: Third Grade
Unit Title: History/Colonial America / Timeframe Needed for Completion: 4 weeks
Grading Period: 1st
Big Idea/Theme: Leadership, Events, Change
Understandings:
- Historical events often have effects on the local community or regions over time
- Diverse historical people influence local communities and regions over time.
- Communities and regions are often developed due to necessity for survival and to preserve values and traditions.
- People, events and places impact history over time
- Historical sources from multiple points of view may be used to develop an understanding of what happened in the past.
Curriculum Goals/Objectives:
3.H.1.1 Explain key historical events that occurred in the local community and regionsover time.
3.H.1.2 Analyze the impact of contributions made by diverse historical figures in localcommunities and regions over time.
3.H.1.3 Exemplify the ideas that were significant in the development of local communitiesand regions.
3.H.2.1 Explain change over time through historical narratives. (events, people and places)
3.H.2.2 Explain how multiple perspectives are portrayed through historical narratives. / Essential Questions:
What influenced the English to come to America?
Discuss how some American citizens worked to defend America’s basic principles?
Essential Skills/Vocabulary:
- Europeans and other settlers came to North America (Roanoke Island/Jamestown).
- Colonists developed rules for government (constitution).
- Diverse historical figures have made contributions to various communities and regions (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Smith…). Local figures could include: John White, Sir Walter Raleigh, Virginia Dare, John Smith, Christopher Newport, Pocahontas, J.P. Knapp, W.T. Griggs, Thomas Jarvis, etc.
- Communities and regions are often developed due to necessity for survival and to preserve values and traditions.
- How natural resources affect the location of development.
- Development and traditions of various groups in local communities and regions affect the economic development and the cultural make-up of a community.
- Technological innovations have impacted local communities and regions.
- How people adapt and modify the environment when developing local communities and regions.
- How human and environmental features affect development.
*Students will write to explain why Europeans came to America, where they settled, and why they chose that location.
*Students will compose biographies of famous historical figures that contributed to various communities.
Integration Opportunities:
Field trip to Jamestownor Roanoke Island(funding?)
Books:
Explore Colonial Jamestown by Elaine Landau
Thomas Jefferson by Judy Emerson
Thomas Jefferson: a photo-illustrated biographyby T.M. Usel ; historical consultant, Steve Potts.
John Adams: second president, 1797-1801 written and illustrated by Mike Venezia
Websites:
(links to other websites and other resources)
three perspectives of an event during the civil war-
To learn more about James and Benjamin Duke:
To learn more about John Lawson and other North Carolina explorers:
Learn360 Videos:
Virginia: Jamestown
Virginia: Williamsburg and Yorktown
The Jamestown Settlement
Colonial Days Video Quiz
Colonial Settlements Video and Video Quiz
Tall Tales & Legends: Pocahontas
Just the Facts: Colonization of North American English Settlements Part I
Celebrating America: Symbols and Ceremonies
The Fight for Independence Video Quiz
Just the Facts: 50 Years in American History
Native American Life
Native Peoples of the Woodlands
Thomas Jefferson and all related segments
Creating the Federal Government
Literature possibilities:
Susanne Tate: (Lost Colony)Soft Step & Bright Eyes (story based on report from Sir Walter Raleigh and the first contact in America)
Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone
Dear America series
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Guest Speaker possibilities:
Barbara Snowden, Currituck County Historian (Currituck/NC History)