We have talked a lot about Jamestown Settlement, the first successful English settlement in the New World. To further our understanding of the early settlements and colonies, we compared the Jamestown settlement in Virginia to another early English settlement in Massachusetts - Plymouth. We read the following article comparing the two settlements and filled out a graphic organizer. In earlier lessons, we learned about the three colony regions: New England, Mid-Atlantic and Southern. In many cases, these regions were defined by their differences, especially when it came to their economies and how the settlers living in each region made their living. To help us better understand the economies of the three regions, we looked at the following worksheet and answered the questions. As a special note to those students who are looking for help with packets that are due - the following assignments are expected:
1.) 13 Colonies Map - Labeled and color-coded according to the 3 Colonial Regions. See the blog post before this one for a downloadable map. 2.) 3 Colonial Regions Organizer - Filled out according to the BrainPop video, including pictures in the last row. See the blog post before this one for an example. 3.) Jamestown Graph - Population graph should be complete as well as the four questions at the bottom of the page. Due to copyright, the activity cannot be posted on this webpage. See Mrs. Bauer for materials. 4.) Jamestown vs. Plymouth Organizer - See above for details and downloads. 5.) Economies of the 3 Regions - See above for details and downloads.
0 Comments
We have been learning about the Age of Exploration and Colonization of the New World by European Mother Countries, like England, Spain and France. Since this is a U.S. history class, we will now focus specifically on the colonies that were founded by Britain in North America, as these are the colonies that will eventually become the United States. First, it's important that we are able to identify the 13 Colonies on a map. So, we have labeled them using the printable map below. We also color-coded them according to which Region they belonged to (either New England Colonies, Middle Colonies or Southern Colonies).
In reference to the Colonial Regions, we began looking at the differences between them. We did this by watching a BrainPop video and taking some notes on the differences between the three regions. Our chart looked like the example below. We talk a lot about trade when it comes to the Age of Exploration - trade was, in fact, one of the reasons why the Age of Exploration happened in the first place. We've talked about the Columbian Exchange, which was a mixing of goods, ideas, diseases and people from the Old World to the New World, and vis-versa. We also talked about Mercantilism, which detailed the relationship of mother countries to their colonies. Today, we talked about Triangular Trade, or the trading that occurred between Europe, Africa and the Americas. While it is in the shape of triangle, it is important to remember that it works like a cycle, where each point on the triangle provides the goods needed to the other parts of the triangle on a consistent basis. This creates economic interdependence between the three points on the triangle. ![]() When the Old World and New World collided for the first time after Christopher Columbus' voyage, we had people interacting with each other from all over the world. The trade of ideas, foods, religions, populations and diseases that happened at that point was called the Columbian Exchange. Today we asked ourselves whether or not the benefits of the Columbian Exchange outweighed the costs. We did this by assigning multiple perspectives to students (European, African and Native American) and asking them to think about this event from that group's perspective. They then had to decide, on a scale of 1-10, whether the Exchange was more beneficial or more harmful. After, they had to defend their rating against members of other groups to agree on a total rating for the Columbian Exchange in cooperation with members from other people groups. Part of the Age of Exploration was the colonization of the Americas. Since the United States began as a group of English colonies, and since we revolted against our Mother Country, Britain, because of colonial life, it is important to understand what colonies are and what their purpose is. Colonies are pieces of land conquered by a country, and their purpose was to make the Mother Country wealthy and powerful. This week, we learned about the economic system used to take advantage of colonies, called Mercantilism. We read the passage below, and we listened to a very catchy tune (I'm sorry if it gets stuck in your head) about how Mercantilism works. We rounded out our learning experience of mercantilism with a trading game in which students acted as colonies and mother countries, so they could experience first hand how this system worked. |
AuthorMrs. Bauer is a graduate of Western Kentucky University with six years of teaching experience. She has taught 6th, 7th and 8th grades, including many different subjects such as reading, writing, ancient history and U.S. history. Archives
November 2016
Categories
|