American History – Jamestown, Early Settlements

We are now moving from the Vikings and Explorers into the very earliest Americans who settled our country! There are so, so many wonderful books to read during this time period!! It’s a bit overwhelming. I find myself not wanting to miss any fabulous books, but I know we also can’t read them all!! 🙂

**I have tried to put these in chronological order, but some I am not sure of…

• The Lost Colony Of Roanoke
• Roanoke: The Lost Colony–An Unsolved Mystery from History
• Pocahontas
• Pocahontas and the Strangers (Scholastic Biography)
• The Story Of Pocanhontas (Beginning To Read Alone 2, Dorling Kindersley Readers)
• The Double Life of Pocahontas
• Moccasin Trail
• If You Lived With The Iroquois
• If You Lived With The Cherokees
• Jamestown, New World Adventure (Adventures in Colonial America)
• Blood on the River: James Town, 1607
  . . . If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620
• Almost Home: A Story Based on the Life of the Mayflower’s Mary Chilton (Daughters of the Faith Series)
• The Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving
• William Bradford Pilgrim Boy
• Squanto, Friend Of The Pilgrims (Scholastic Biography)
• Stories of the Pilgrims
• Ox-Cart Man
• The Courage of Sarah Noble
• The Sign of the Beaver
• The Birchbark House

 

American History coloring pages – a great site

Edible tee-pee — fun!!

Exploring a colonial town – this is a fun site that kids can use themselves to click around and explore a colonial town and family!

Colonial occupations – descriptions of the various jobs

Native American ideas – lots of games and craft ideas listed here

Pocahontas – free lapbook and unit to go with D’Aulaire’s book

The Courage of Sarah Noble – free unit and lapbook

Native American resources from Homeschool Share – lots of free units and lapbooks!

• Role play – give students a settler profile, ask them to describe why or why not they think their person would have survived living in Jamestown (for example: an elderly lady who is just getting over pneumonia – do you think she would have survived? or a man in his 30’s who has been a hard farm worker his whole life…)
• Letter writing – pretend you are a new colonist who just arrived in Jamestown, write a letter to your family back home letting them know how you are doing, what your days look like, etc.
• Create your own new government – what rules would you make? what would you change? how would you want things to be different than they were in your previous location? who would be your leader and why?
• Have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner together with friends or family, involve the kids in cooking and discuss what foods they had in early America, discuss what foods the Indians taught them to make.
• Explore the Colonists Occupation link (above) and have each child research 1 occupation they think they might have enjoyed or wanted to be as a colonist
• Hobby Lobby has a lot of great craft kits for this time period – leather tee-pees and other leather crafts, beading, corn husk dolls, feathers for Indian hats, etc.

I would love to hear of other fun, frugal hands on activity ideas! If you have more ideas, please share in the comment section!