California History
Introduction
Bulletin Boards!
Before we get started, and we do those KWL charts, a good way I like to get started is to decorate the classroom! Use these coloring pages to get the kids going. Print a few copies of each image for kids to pick. Kids color and start to tap into their prior knowledge. Choose the best ones to decorate the classroom with.
Also, print the California Constitution or do a maze of California or print these stickers and make a cute border.
We will be working on the timeline through the unit. It's designed like the image to the right: Pennants to hang around the room. Let each kid color one and drape them around, adding the information as you go along in the unit!
The Four Regions of California
To introduce the great state of California, and the whole unit, I show this video I made called "Writing Fluency: California Landscapes." Students will be looking at an image, and writing in their notebooks or a blank sheet of paper for the purposes of writing fluency. At the end of the video, there will be a part that asks students to count the number of words. The video is an introduction to California history standards but also a writing lesson!
You can throw in the second video to play some rock and roll and get kids to feel good about California!
Now is also a very good time to make a relief map or a 3D map of California. Kids can use homemade salt dough, some paint... and it kills some time between Halloween and Thanksgiving when behavior is out the window anyway! :)
Indigenous Peoples
Part One: Indigenous Peoples
To leanr more about individual tribes, click here. I got a whole poage dedicated to their lives, their stories, before colonization.
Objectives:
The writing objective today is to improve handwriting; the reading objective is to read to research, using text features; the history objective is to learn about the indigenous groups of California.
The format over the next three days is a little different: Warm-up, Read an article, Learn about text features
The warm-up (1) is a handwriting practice sheet with the vocabulary I need kids to know about the indigenous peoples. Kids do the worksheet in their best handwriting, and we talk about capital letters in the proper nouns, how to pronounce them, and we read and re-read the sentences.
The main activity (2) is reading and highlighting an article. I get my articles from a paid subscription to newsela and I printed those examples here. First, (2a) we read the article together as a class, no highlighting, no discussion. Then, I have students re-read (2b) the article silently and highlight the main idea. They can choose between 1-3 sentences to highlight as the main idea of the article. Finally, students pair off into partners and re-read the article together (2c). If students want to highlight a new sentence that is fine. Once I see that students have completed the reading with a partner, I then hand them the copy of the comprehension questions. They complete them with a partner. We come back together and share out the answers and the sentence that is the main idea. (There will always be some variety in what sentence student thinks is the main idea. It's definitely a teachable moment.)
The last activity is to examine the article for text features. We have a big chart in the classroom just listing different text features the author used, such as "bold words" or "subheadings" or "photographs." Don't forget to include things within the paragraphs, such as quotes from an expert. We have a quick discussion of what the text feature is, why the author chose it and how it helps the reader.
So, using that format, here are the print resources for each day!
DAY TWO
California Indigenous People 1 Printing Practice
DAY THREE
California Indigenous People 2 Printing Practice
DAY FOUR
California Indigenous People 3 Printing Practice
View Primary Sources and do a quick write of "What do you notice? What do you wonder?" In this section of the lesson, show each photograph for about 2 minutes. During those two minutes, students write anything they observe, anything that comes to mind when viewing it.
Spanish Influence in California
Spain's Influence
Indigenous People and the Spanish Missions
Objectives:
The writing objective today is to improve writing fluency; the reading objective is to read to research, finding details; the history objective is to learn about Father Serra's contributions.
(1) Play the video
To get the discussion started on Spanish missions specifically, I have another writing fluency video. The one called "Writing Fluency: California Missions" shows how the modern California, and their lives, connects to the Missions System, such as images of a Catholic baptism. Just get a blank sheet of paper (or writing notebook) in the kid's hands, and push play. As for me, many students where I teach are Mexican-Catholics: some identify as various indigenous groups, some have been in California since the border crossed them. Every year, I have a handful of devote Catholic kids, just fresh from their confirmations. For the other kids, many say "I am not Catholic, I am Christian", to which I always stop and have a little discussion. This video is the step-stoning to that conversation.
(2) Read the textbook
Now, we bust out the textbook, (or an article) and I specifically teach about Father Serra, If your textbook has comprehension questions at the end, sweet! Use that! I also have this worksheet for kids to do some further research.
The Mexican Era of California
Objectives:
The reading objective is to read and comprehend informational texts. The history objective is to understand the Mexican influence in California before the Mexican-American War. (Most of our time time is then building the background knowledge to understand the textbook.)
DAY ONE: Make a Timeline
Print the timeline and images for students, allowing them to work in groups of three and four. This is helping students to build the background knowledge necessary to understand the textbook. After the timeline is built, students will write a short summary of the Mexican influence in California tomorrow.
DAY TWO: Write a paragraph
Now that students have a general idea, students can write a paragraph that oversimplifies and generalizes. The task is for students to sort some sentences and sentence fragments into paragraphs. Here are the paragraph fragments. Students can work in groups of five: Students 1-4 sorts the fragments into a coherent paragraph. Student #5 reads the paragraphs out loud to make sure it sounds good and makes sense. In other words, the kids are hearing the same information over and over again and reorganizing it.
DAY THREE:
Read the part of the history textbook regarding Mexican influence in California and watch some cool videoes:
The Mexican Era Video by The Cynical Historian
The Bear Flag Revolt by The Cynical Historian
The Mexican- American War
Objectives:
The reading objective is to read to quote accurately from a text and make an inference. The history objective is to understand the causes of the Mexican-American War and to use some primary sources.
DAY ONE
(1) First, we have a quick discussion, just on the carpet with some chart paper about primary sources, secondary sources and "other sources." I usually just make a three columns and start asking the group questions. (1a) First, I tell the class that a primary source is when the eye-witness tells what happened. The secondary source is when someone tells what the eye-witness said happened. The last column, "Other," is when no one talked to the eye-witness but reported it anyway, like class textbook writers or Wikipedia editors. (1b) Then, I ask students for examples of an eye-witness who recorded their experiences. For example, the president of the nation might keep a journal, a solider in a war might take a picture, an immigrate from the Ukraine might answer interview questions, a police officer might make a tally of the number of people present at a rally. I ask the same about secondary sources: examples pf secondary sources, people who wrote down stuff when they were not there. I use my own example of Septemeber 11: I watched it on TV and then wrote in my journal about my predictions, my fears, my friends serving in the miltiary, the eerie-ness of seeing no one on the freeway, no planes in the sky. I would be a secondary source.
(2) Next, I tell students that we are going to analyze some primary documents: (a) President James Polk's journal and (b) maps of the USA in the 1800s. I tell the students that the US and Mexico and Texas were all upset about the borders and there was some confusion about where exactly the USA ended. We are going to look at some primary sources and try to figure out what the president was thinking. I hand out the worksheet and let the kids work through it. Then, I hand them the questions for discussion.
(3) Finally, I show them the 1848 map of the USA. I ask students to do the following activities:
Highlight the edges of the USA on both maps.
Measure the distance between San Diego and Las Vegas on both maps.
Trace the rivers in blue: Colorado River, Sacramento, Rio Grande on both maps.
(3) We end the day with a summary. I bring students back to the chart we made about primary and secondary sources. Then, I ask them "So why do we have to learn about old border disputes today?" Hopefully, kids can see that borders are always changing, people are always changing, nations are always changing. If we study old changes, we can predict new changes coming and stop wars before they start.... you know, if you are looking at the really big picture.
DAY TWO
Today, we revisit the chart from yesterday and add another part: Why were these documents created? What was the purpose of creating the text in the first place? In more kid-friendly terms that would be "Why do people write down stuff that happened to them?" I start with Primary Sources and record what the students say. Hopefully, the kids answers with things like "People write stuff because they like to keep a diary" or "Your boss tells you to write it down" or "to communicate with people who are far away." There are lots of reasons.
If you get nothing from kids, you can spin it in the modern world: Why do you put stuff in Instagram? Why do you use Social Media? What do you say on it? Why?
We are going to look at a second source today: a newspaper article telling about the new war with Mexico. Click here for the Google Doc with the article and the questions to help kids analyze it. Remember, the lesson objective is for kids to quote a text and then make inferences from the text. I just wrap that up with the history standards of knowing about the Mexican-American War.
These are the notes for the class chart. I want the class coming up with the ideas for themselves, but, you know, sometimes kids need a push, right?
This is the worksheet that I hand out: There are two additional pages with primary sources on them to analyze.
This one is all about the analysis of the primary source: the journals.
Summarize Early California
Objectives:
The language objective today is oral language practice. Today's activities also serve to summarize what was learned so far.
(1) Print these hexagons, one for each table group. Then, (2) have students cut them out and (3) sort them by relationship. In other words, if the edges touch, the two things are related to each other. This helps students see the relationships between different things. All together, the sorting part should take about fifteen minutes or so. The next step (4) is to share out, or just have students walk around and see how the other groups saw how things were related. (5) Finally, students copy some notes down in their notebooks, maybe just diagramming the entire hexagonal display, if necessary. Tomorrow, students will turn these hexagonal discussions into paragraphs, a quick write about what they learned.
Day Six - Eight: Watch some videos and Quick Write
Video #1) This video is a 20 minute fast summary of California. (I would skip 11:21-11:36 since it mentions how "indigenous people were enslaved, kidnapped, raped." You can just stop the video at 11:21 because then it goes into civil way stuff anyway.) It is a great summary video of the things we have learned so far.
Video #2) Now, with this video, kids are going to be more independent. "The History of California" is a 25-minute youtube video. I like it because it is very straightforward. Kids take note here Google Doc (but I like to print mine as a hard copy for each kid). I warn them that tomorrow we will be writing about how California's peoples changed from 1700-1900.
When the video is over, and students completed their notes, I have them go back and mark the paragraphs about how the peoples of California changed. If you printed it in black and white, kids have to figure it out for themselves. If you gave them the digital copy, the red letters point them towards the paragraphs!
At the end of the videos, I have kids do a quick-write:
How did Spain’s actions contribute to modern California?
How did Mexico’s actions contribute to modern California?
How did the gold rush contribute to modern California?
How did the building of the railroad contribute to modern California?
Pioneer Days
Cold River Mining This is a vendor that sells everything mining: from fossils to rocks, to thousand-dollar props for kids to do mining!
Transcontinental Railroad
Animated Map showing Growth of USA via rail lines
Quick Summary Video (the sound sucks but the message is quick and clear)
Documentary, about eight minutes long
Writing Fluency
Have students take out a blank sheet of paper and push play on the video to the right. This is a good introduction to the Pony Express riders. At the end of the video, there is a clip from "The Story of Us" from the History Channel. This is to get the conversation going: As students transition from learning about indigenous people to "Manifest Destiny"... the history of American transportation takes kids from walking as a Kaweah people did, to wagon trains, to Pony Express, to the transcontinental railroad to the cars and planes of today. And then... the gold is about to be discovered..
The GOLD RUSH!
History for Little Humans 'What impact did the Gold Rush have on America?"
Music for California
The "Northwest Passage" is a great song, with a great voice. It is about trying to find a route across Canada to the Pacific Ocean. It compares the past travelers with the moderns day narrator's journey. The video here shows lots of historical images, showing how the land "is so wide and savage" and what the heroes crossing it had to do.
Field Trips and Class Visitor Ideas
Modern California
By the 1980s, we have a totally different California that 1880, than 1780. This is a great time to view "Why did People Settle in California?" and have kids do a quick write about what they noticed, what they wonder. These primary source photographs show fruit packers from the 1939 Sunkist factory and Korean field workers in Riverside, California. Great way to start a discussion!
California Data This is a great website to gather data on California, such as our current senator, population size, median property value.... all that good stuff!
Maps This website has every map of California that you will ever need!
California Counties Blank Outline Map
California Counties: Completed and Colorized
California Legislation Follow congress and see what bills they are working on
View our current constitution
Other Great Resources
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