How my class time-travels to Colonial America - study of early settlements

Instructor, Nov-Dec, 1994 by Linda Kay Reeves

Innovative activities that spice up the study of early settlements

My goal in teaching social studies is to help children move beyond simply responding--giving me the answer they think I want--to inquiring. I want to make learning so active that students leave my classroom itching to find out more on their own. Here's how my students and I step back into time to explore Colonial America.

SETTLING ON A SITE

As with every unit, I start by heightening students' geographical awareness, in this case by having kids decide where they would have built Jamestown, the first European settlement in America. I've found that if students understand the lay of the land, they see how it influenced historical events. After we review geographical terms, I divide the class into groups of five and assign each student the role of captain, farmer, soldier, fisherman, or carpenter. I give each group a physical map of the Jamestown area and ask kids to put themselves in the settlers' shoes and choose a site for their colony. I remind students to decide which physical features are most important, because a 'captain may want a place with a deep harbor, a farmer may prefer a flat area, and a soldier may opt for higher ground that's easily defensible. Once groups come to a consensus, they present their choice to the class and explain their reasoning. Afterward, I show students the actual location settlers chose and we discuss why the colonists' initial choice was poor and why they relocated.

THROUGH NATIVE-AMERICAN EYES

To help students gain different perspectives, we read The Double Life of Pocahontas by Jean Fritz (Putnam, 1983), which examines how the life of Pocahontas and other Native Americans changed with the arrival of the Europeans. I ask three or four students to read different parts of the book at home and retell their episode to the class. Then I give students two-column notebooks with passages from the book copied in one column and blank space in the other, and have students write their reactions to each passage.

GAMES GALORE

As we continue in our time travels, we learn that colonial children played more games but had fewer toys than children today--and that all their toys were handmade. Students are often surprised to learn that colonial games like hoop-and-hide are echoed in today's hide-and-seek, while others-like blindman's bluff or leapfrog--are played almost exactly as in the past. For directions to nearly two dozen games for the playground or classroom, try A Pocketful of Colonial Games by Rosalind Schilder, a writer and former librarian (send $4 to Rosalind Schilder, P.O. Box 708, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462). An easy-to-make board game that's a favorite with my students is Nine Men's Morris--for directions, see The Book Classic Board Games by Sid Sackson (Klutz Press, 1991).

SING THE ERA'S SONGS

I do a sing-along of tunes of the time, starting with the book The Pilgrims Are Marching by Carol Greene (Children's Press, 1988), a transcription of the Irish-American folk song that mentions John Billington, one of the children who made the Atlantic crossing on the Mayflower. I use many songs from Wee Sing America by Pamela Conn Beall and Susan Hagen Nipp (Price/Stern/Sloan, 1987), an inexpensive collection of patriotic, pioneer, cowboy, and work songs with an accompanying audiotape that'll help even the most musically impaired teacher explore America's musical heritage.

PROFILES OF THE COLONISTS

To find out who the early settlers were, we get lists of colonists' names from a treasure trove of primary-source documents available from Plimoth Plantation (Education Department, P.O. Box 1620, Plymouth, MA 02362), Jamestown (Education Department, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, P.O. Drawer J.F., Williamsburg, VA 23187), and Colonial Williamsburg, (Group Arrivals Building, 160 Visitor's Center Dr., Williamsburg, VA 23185). Students examine these lists, discovering that Jamestown was largely made up of males whose occupation was "gentleman," while Plimouth was composed of families with a variety of skills. Students hypothesize about the impact of this as they read about each colony's problems.

HELLO, DOLLIES

We stage a colonial fashion show by making 12-inch paper dolls out of white poster paper (with cutout snapshots of ourselves for the heads) and creating paper outfits for them. We consult The American Family of the Colonial Era: Paper Dolls in Full Color by Tom Tierney (Dover Publications, 1983). Then, throughout the school year, we dress our paper dolls as we research the clothing of each period we study.

BUILDING A SETTLEMENT

Students use their math skills to create a miniature colonial village. They begin by choosing an occupation--such as glassblower, wigmaker, or silversmith--and reading up on it in Tools and Gadgets, Colonial Crafts, Colonial Life, and other books from the illustrated and easy-to-read series Historic Communities by Bobbie Kalman (Crabtree Publishing, 1992).

On graph paper students draw to scale their plans for a workshop or store and cut their models out of cardboard boxes. Finally, kids make parchment-like, opaque windows--rubbing long strips of white butcher paper with vegetable oil--that resemble those colonists would have made from paper.