This unit plan teaches 4th grade students about European exploration and colonial America through the use of technology and collaboration. Over eight days, students will: 1) Learn about European explorers from the 15th-16th centuries and their reasons for exploration through maps, timelines, and group projects. 2) Study the establishment of the 13 colonies and compare life in the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies. 3) Create podcasts and posters comparing social classes and family roles in different colonies as well as English, French, and Spanish settlements. 4) Use primary sources and reflection writing to understand slavery's influence on the colonial economy.

1. Assure Method Unit PlanIntroduction: This Unit Plan will be teaching students about European Exploration which led to Colonial America. This unit will center itself around using 21st Century technology, Web 2.0 applications, and collaboration between students and the teacher.Analyze Learners

2. My Unit Plan was written for students in a 4th grade classroom. The students would be between 9 and 10 years old. My goal is to cover who and when each part of North America was discovered, when the first colonies were established, and how colonists created a life for themselves in the different colonies.

3. State Objectives http://wveis.k12.wv.us/Teach21/public/cso/cso.cfm

4. SS. O. 4. 5. 1 Create timelines to sequence and infer connections between events in major historical periods in U.S. history (e.g., discovery, colonization, revolution).

5. SS. O. 4. 5. 5 List the European explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries, explain their reasons for exploration and the information gained from their journeys and then show how their travels in North America affected both North America and the rest of the world.

6. SS. O. 4. 5. 12 Select, analyze, interpret and use information from various sources for reconstructing the past (e.g., documents, letters, maps, photos, newspaper articles) and prepare short reports that explain who, what, when, where, how and why events occurred as they did.

7. SS. O. 4. 3. 5 Summarize how slavery and indentured servitude influenced the early economy of the United States.

8. SS. O. 4. 5. 6 Compare and contrast community life and family roles in various regions and social classes of colonial America.

9. SS. O. 4. 5. 11 Explain the similarities and differences in backgrounds, motivations and occupational skills between people in the English settlements and those in the French and Spanish settlements.

10. SS. O. 4. 4. 2 Analyze and assess the effects of and explain how people adapted to geographic factors (e.g., climate, mountains, bodies of water) on the following:

11. Transportation routes

12. Settlement routes and population density

13. Culture (e.g., jobs, food, clothing, shelter, religion, government)

14. Interactions with others (local, national, global)

15. Select Media and Materials

16. Smart Board

17. Bulletin Board

18. Maps

19. Globes

20. Board Games

21. PowerPoint

22. Wiki for the Classroom

23. Textbooks

24. Computers

25. Handbook

26. Document Camera

27. Websites:

28. http://cybersleuth-kids.com/americanhistory/Chapter1/earlysettlements.htm

29. This website is geared toward students where they can learn about how the first colonists came over to America and what they saw when they landed in the foreign land.

30. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/history/index.html

31. This website is geared toward the students where they can interact with the website. Students can take quizzes to see if they would survive in Colonial America, become a captain of a voyage across the Atlantic, and dress up a colonist in their clothing of the time.

32. http://cybersleuth-kids.com/sleuth/History/US_History/Colonial_Period/index.htm

33. This website is geared toward the students where they can choose link that directs them to a description of some of the major events that happened during Colonial America. These links include: The Boston Tea Party, Jamestown, and the Thirteen Colonies.

34. http://www.kidinfo.com/American_History/Explorers.html

35. This website is for students where they can click on the different links and find out about the explorers, and there are also interactive sites that can be visited.

36. http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/explorer.html

37. This website is for teachers; here teachers can click on each of the explorers’ names and get information about them.

38. http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson162.shtml

39. This website is geared toward teachers and can be used a guide for different activities for the students and lessons ideas for the teacher.

40. http://www.besthistorysites.net/USHistory_Colonial.shtml

41. This website is geared toward teachers and is whole page of different links that can be chosen for different events of Colonial America and the history of Colonial America.

42. http://www.teachervision.fen.com/american-colonies/teacher-resources/6606.html

43. This website is geared toward teachers and is a resource page. Here teachers can find different arts and crafts, articles from personal accounts, and biographies of colonists.

44. Utilize Media and Materials

45. Day 1 – SS. O. 4. 5. 5

46. The first day European Exploration will be introduced to the students. Students will be taught about the different explorers from each country and what their contribution to exploration was. After the lesson plan is over students will receive the Age of Exploration worksheet which will be completed at the end of the class. Students will work on this worksheet by themselves for the first 10 minutes to test their knowledge then they can get into groups and compare answers. Students will be assigned to read the chapter on exploration for homework and write down any facts they think are important.

47. Day 2 – SS. O. 4. 5. 12 and SS. O. 4. 5. 5

48. The first half of class will be dedicated to going over the chapter on exploration and comparing each student’s facts that they thought were interesting. The second half of the class will be focused on using maps and photos of the different explorers and the routes they traveled. The student will be separated into groups and will be given an explorer. Students will be given a blank map of the world and will need to draw the travel route of their explorer. The students will also need to provide what year the exploration took place, where the explorer was headed, and where the explorer ended up. Students will also have to put the photo of their explorer on the map (which will be provided) and provide a 2-3 sentence paragraph about the explorer. This group project will take up the whole rest of the class and half of the next so students will not have homework.

49. Day 3 – SS. O. 4. 5. 12 and SS. O. 4. 5. 5

50. Each group project will present in front of the class while the other groups take notes of the information that is being given. After the projects are finished timelines will be passed out of the all the exploration dates and the class will be introduced to Colonial America by the timeline worksheet. Students will be challenged by having a knowledge quiz on Colonial America through the Student Response System; students will not be graded on this but will be awarded participation points for doing the quiz. After each students answers the correct answer will appear on the screen. I will also hand out the Thirteen Colonies worksheet; this is strictly to test the student’s knowledge and will not be graded. After the quiz and the Colonial America worksheet we will go over the worksheet as a class and students may answer if they think they know the right answer or have an answer.

51. Day 4 – SS. O. 4. 4. 2

52. Students will be introduced to the New England, Middle, and Southern colonies, along with names and founding dates of each of the states. The interactive bulletin board will be used for this and students will match the name of the colony with the state on the map. Interactions between the colonies will also be introduced like what they used for transportation, which the colonists interacted with each other, and what the colonist did for jobs, food, and clothing. After seeing the bulletin board and learning about the colonies students will be quizzed on the Smart Board. For homework students must read the chapter in the text and highlight or take notes. This reading will be discussed during the next class and students will be able to earn participation points.

53. Day 5 – SS. O. 4. 5. 6

54. The chapter on colonies will be discussed and notes will be compared between the students and here they will be able to earn participation points. Students will be introduced to the different family roles and social classes in each of the different sections of the colonies. The class will be split into three groups and each will be assigned a section of the Thirteen Colonies (i.e. New England, Middle, and Southern). Each group will create a podcast of their section of the colonies including family roles and social classes of each of the colonies. Each team member must talk at least 3 times and they podcast needs to be creative; if the student wish to they may take it home and work on it if it is not finished in class.

55. Day 6 – SS. O. 4. 5. 6 and SS. O. 4. 3. 5

56. Each podcast will be listened to and students are expected to take notes from what they hear. Next slavery in the colonies will be introduced to the students and how it affected the colonies. In order to get the full effect of what slaves’ endured students will read excerpts of personal experiences by slaves and write a short response on what they thought (i.e. whether or not they felt sympathy for them or if they what was being done to the slaves was right). This exercise will be done on blogger and at the end of the Unit Plan students will write a reflection paper on what they learned during the Unit Plan and what they liked/disliked. This will all be done in class then peer reviewed and turned into the teacher.

57. Day 7 – SS. O. 4. 5. 11

58. The last day of the class English, French, and Spanish settlements will be compared with each other. A PowerPoint will be provided on this and discussed during the first part of the class. Students will once again be separated into groups and assigned a country. Students are expected to create a poster describing their countries settlement and will be documented by camera. Students will have to interact and speak to get full credit. A study guide for the whole unit will also be handed out and worked on in groups. This will help the students prepare for the assessment to come. There will be sometime left in class to work on the study guide and students may use their fellow classmates for help.

59. Day 8 – Computer Lab

60. During this class period students will go to the computer lab and explore the different websites about the unit. Worksheets will be provided with the websites on them and students have to choose at least two websites to explore and do two activities on each website. After the student has completed the activities they are to be printed out and turned into the teacher. For extra credit students can visit all four sites and do two activities for each, this can be taken home and done if class time does not permit. Students may work with a partner for this assignment. Here the students will write their reflection paper on blogger of what they thought about the unit.

61. Require Learner Participation

62. To keep the learners attention I will provide many hands on activities to keep the class fun and interesting. There will be many hand outs and worksheets that will allow the students to work in groups of 2 or sometimes 4 and collaborate with each other. For one day of the lesson plan a board game will be provided for each group of students to play for half of class. Student will also interact with the interactive bulletin board on the smart board. One arts and crafts project will also be provided for the class for half of the period. For extra credit students can dress up as a colonist for one day and state to the class which colony they are from and why they chose this colony.

63. Evaluate and Revise

64. Students will not just be evaluated at the end of the unit but also during the unit with worksheets, group projects, and quizzes. Students will also be tested through the Student Response System and the Smart Board. As one big last project students will create their own colony (i.e. name of colony, where it will be, religion if any, crops, trade, etc). This project will be presented to the class and will be documented by camera. One big assessment will be administered at the end of the unit which will include matching, true or false questions, multiple choice, and one short answer question. A bonus question will also be added to the test of one interesting fact that was taught over the unit.