Skip to main content

America: The Story of Us ~ Episode 3: "Westward 1" Lesson Plans

This past summer, when I planned our lessons for this year, I was enthralled with how much information was in Episode 3 ~ Westward. It couldn't be done in just three weeks, as I had intended for each unit. So, I broke Westward up into two separate units: Westward 1 and Westward 2. This week I will provide the lesson plans for Westward 1. We spent three weeks on this part of the unit.

We read The Captain's Dog by Roland Smith. We read an equal number of pages each day to cover the three-week unit (Suprisingly, Dawson did not enjoy this book as much as I thought he would. With him being such a dog-lover, I thought he would appreciate it more. But it just didn't have enough action for him. You'll find that he's hard to please when it comes to literature. I actually really enjoyed The Captain's Dog and thought it was a great piece of historical fiction.)


We watched the entire Episode 3, did the discussion questions/video quiz for the episode and the vocabulary words. These can be printed by going here. The Episode Guides are down the left hand column on the site.


All "notebooking pages" are printed from Advanced World History Vol. 2 from Hold that Thought!

All "America's Heritage" references are materials printed from America's Heritage: An Adventure in Liberty by The American Heritage Education Foundation, Inc.

Dawson also does Internet research to help him obtain information for his note booking pages. He is required to write 8-9 sentences since he is in the 9th grade.


We did the following activities:

* Jedediah Smith journal questions (from Episode 3 Guide)
* Read "Circa 1803" from Lewis and Clark PBS site and Section 1 questions (in pdf format, click "Section 1" under Introductory Class Discussion)
* Do Number 7 of Lesson 1 (Map Section and Section 3 Activity question, pdf format) and Number 8 and 9 of Lesson 1 (Section 4, Map comparison, pdf format)
* Daniel Boone notebooking page
* Lewis and Clark notebooking page
* Sacagawea notebooking page
* US Flag vocabulary, read Flag Code, put dates on US Flags, from America's Heritage
* Star Spangled Banner vocabulary and discussion questions from America's Heritage
* Francis Scott Key notebooking page
* Rewatch "The Donner Party" clips from Episode 3
* "What was wagon train life like" notebooking page
* Read "The Diary of Patrick Breen" from American Experience on PBS site
* The Donner Party notebooking page

When searching for the Lewis and Clark activities from the OETA site so that I could link them, I noticed that things had been changed since I printed them this summer. There is now a Classroom Resources link that has GREAT resources for Social Studies, Math, Science and Language Arts. It would certainly be worth checking these out before finalizing your lesson plans on Lewis and Clark.


Books Read (maybe not the whole book, but reading through it for notebooking pages and general information):

Daniel Boone by Janet Riehecky
The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Christin Ditchfield


Videos Watched:

"Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corp of Discovery" (Ken Burns), Netflix



** These lesson plans were based on planning for an American History course for a 9th grade boy. I allow some activities to be under his grade level and some to be above in order to give him a fun, exciting, and well-rounded understanding of the materials.



Previous Lesson Plans Posted:
Lesson 1 ~ Rebels
Lesson 2 ~ Revolution

Comments

  1. I think The Story of Us is such a great resource. We watched the entire series last year when we were iced in!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for all the great ideas and resources. I'll be using them with my son next year!

    Sarah

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

We all know that in this crazy world of homeschooling, we need all the (adult) support we can get. Please leave a comment if you so wish!

Popular posts from this blog

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

A Thomas Jefferson Education "This Week in History" ~ Schoolhouse Review

Talk about a GOLD MINE! A Thomas Jefferson Education's This Week in History by Rachel DeMille is her "labor of love" ... and I absolutely LOVE it! " This Week in History is a daily resource that brings your home school or classroom to life." For just $9.99 per month, you can log onto TJEd.com and click the "This Week in History" link to obtain many, many, many resources tied to specific events that occurred in the upcoming week in history. Or even better, you can receive the summaries and links to ALL resources right in your email Inbox each week! It doesn't get any easier than that! What does this really look like in real life? Each week, I receive an email from Rachel DeMille that sets out each date of the coming week. Under the date, there are listed anywhere from one to several events that occurred in history on that date. THEN there are ALL kinds of things to do related to that event, such as books to read, websites to visit, ac

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.