Choices of the Virginia Company
Grade Level: 4
Time Needed: Four blocks-day 1, 60 minutes; day 2, 30 minutes; day 3 30 minutes; day 4, 45-60 minutes
Unit Essential Question: In early Jamestown, how did choices affect people’s lives?
Lesson Essential Question: How did the choices of the Virginia Company affect the fate of the early colonists?
Virginia Standards:
Social Studies
VS.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis and responsible citizenship, including the ability to
a) identify and interpret artifacts and primary and secondary source documents to understand events in history;
b) determine cause-and-effect relationships;
d) draw conclusions and make generalizations;
g) interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives;
VS.3 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the first permanent English settlement in America by
a) explaining the reasons for English colonization;
c) identifying the importance of the charters of the Virginia Company of London establishing the Jamestown settlement;
f) describing the hardships faced by settlers at Jamestown and the changes that took place to ensure survival;
English
4.1 The student will use effective oral communication skills in a variety of settings.
b) Contribute to group discussions.
d) Use evidence to support opinions.
e) Use grammatically correct language and specific vocabulary to communicate ideas.
4.2 The student will make and listen to oral presentations and reports.
a) Use subject-related information and vocabulary.
b) Listen to and record information.
c) Organize information for clarity.
4.5 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of nonfiction.
d) Make simple inferences, using information from texts.
e) Draw conclusions, using information from texts.
f) Summarize content of selection, identifying important ideas and providing details for each
important idea.
g) Describe relationship between content and previously learned concepts or skills.
i) Identify new information gained from reading.
4.6 The student will demonstrate comprehension of information resources to research a topic.
b) Collect information, using the resources of the media center, including online, print, and
media resources.
c) Evaluate and synthesize information.
4.7 The student will write effective narratives, poems, and explanations.
a) Focus on one aspect of a topic.
c) Organize writing to convey a central idea.
d) Write several related paragraphs on the same topic.
e) Utilize elements of style, including word choice and sentence variation.
g) Use available technology.
4.8 The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization, spelling, punctuation, and
sentence structure.
a) Use subject-verb agreement.
b) Include prepositional phrases.
c) Eliminate double negatives.
d) Use noun-pronoun agreement.
e) Use commas in series, dates, and addresses.
f) Incorporate adjectives and adverbs.
g) Use the articles a, an, and the correctly.
h) Use correct spelling for frequently used words, including common homophones.
Math
4.14 The student will collect, organize, display, and interpret data from a variety of graphs.
Visual Arts
4.25 The student will formulate questions about works of art.
Science
4.1 The student will plan and conduct investigations in which
b) hypotheses are formulated based on cause-and-effect relationships;
NCSS Standards:
III, People, Places, & Environments
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments, so that the learner can:
c. use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools such as atlases, data bases, grid sys-tems, charts, graphs, and maps to generate, manipulate, and interpret information;
g. describe how people create places that reflect ideas, personality, culture, and wants and needs as they design homes, playgrounds, classrooms, and the like;
Materials Needed:
Goals/Objectives:
Activities/Instruction:
1. Remind children that yesterday they were asked by the Virginia Company to go to the Americas to start a colony in Virginia. Ask students if anyone can remember why they wanted to start a settlement in Virginia and take responses.
2. Tell students how Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in America. Explain that while the colony eventually became very successful, the first few years were very difficult and out of over 500 settlers that arrived at the settlement by 1610, only about 60 of them survived. Tell the students over the next week they are going to learn about the first few years of the settlement and try to figure out why so many people died.
3. Have students imagine that they are now a member of the Virginia Company of London. The king has just given them permission to start a new settlement in a far off land and they are so excited because they are sure they are going to get rich from this new venture. As a class, brainstorm a list of things that they will need to survive in the new land (list should include food, water, shelter, protection from dangers such as animals and other people, leadership etc.). If students have a long list of related items, create a web diagram to group like items together.
4. Next, in heterogeneous groups, have the students brainstorm a list of the types of people they think would help the settlement start smoothly, keeping in mind the list of things they’ll need to set up the colony. Ask: What jobs would be necessary to start the colony? What types of people will be important to bring? How many people of each occupation would they bring if they could only bring 100 people? What skills do they think would be important? What kinds of jobs would they want people to know how to do? Have students share out their thoughts in a whole group discussion and compile a list on chart paper.
5. After the class discussion, hand out a 3x5 card to each of the students to assign them occupations (figure out beforehand which students will have each occupation-it is recommended that two children, one high or average and one low, be paired together. The “Occupations in Jamestown” sheet used in the next lesson can be cut up into strips and each child given one).
6. Tell the students they have been assigned jobs in the new Jamestown settlement and that they must explain to the rest of the class in a career fair what their role was and why their job was important in the settlement. To do this, children should come up with a symbol of some sort to represent their job using paper and markers, crayons, or watercolors. Then they should write a paragraph about why they think this particular job was important.
After handing out the cards and given the directions, have the students with the same occupation work together to create a symbol and make sense of the job, with assistance from the teacher when necessary. Using the laptops from the school laptop cart, the students should be allowed to research their jobs to learn more about the duties of people in their profession. NOTE: This research can take as long as the teacher deems appropriate, though would likely take two class periods of 30-40 minutes each to research and prepare for their presentation at the "Colonial Career Fair." The career fair would take place on the third day of the lesson.
7. (Day 2) Continue research on occupations using laptops.
8. (Day 3) After the children have created their symbols, the class will get together for a “Colonial Career Fair” and will present their occupations to the class.
9. Wrap up lesson by telling the children that in the next lesson they will learn more about the occupations in Jamestown and choices that the Virginia Company made that affected the settlers in Jamestown.
10. (Day 4) Show the students the work of art located on this page. Have them talk about what they think is going on in the painting. Have them generate a list of questions about the painting as it pertains to the settlement. Examples: Are the people in the picture happy? What are they doing? Why aren't all of the people working? Who are the people sitting around?
11. After reviewing why the Virginia Company wanted to send people to Virginia to start a colony, hand out the “Occupations in Jamestown” and “First Settlers in Jamestown” sheets.
Tell the students that they are holding the list of the names of the first settlers to arrive in Jamestown. Ask students to use the data on the “First Settlers” sheet to make a bar graph using graph paper and crayons or markers (they will do this with their elbow partner). One of the occupations can be chosen to start the graph as a class if necessary. The bar graph should show how many people of each occupation there were in the colony. Explain that after they are done with the bar graph, they should analyze the graph. To do this they will consider the questions on the “Analysis of Jamestown Occupations” sheet.
12 After the children have worked on their graphs and completed their analyses, the class will come back together and have a class discussion about what they noticed about the graph. The teacher can pose the questions on the “Analysis of Jamestown Occupations” sheet and have students share out their answers. When the class gets to the question about missing groups of people, if “women” are not mentioned, the teacher should ask them about their thoughts on why the Virginia Company may have chosen to leave women in England. Teacher can then explain that many men were too prideful to do the cooking and cleaning and felt it was “women’s work” and this caused a lot of issues in the camp. After the discussion, the teacher should have the students put their graphs and analysis papers in their Social Studies folder in their desks for use in the next lesson.
13. Teacher has students take out their Social Studies journal and announces that they are going to make a class cause and effect T-chart about choices that affected Jamestown (which they should copy into their journals). Teacher tells the students that the question of the day is ‘How did the choices of the Virginia Company affect the fate of the colonists?’ What choice did the Virginia Company make that sticks out most to you?” The children should say something along the lines of “they chose to send a lot of gentlemen, not a lot of workers, and no women” This answer should be written next to the number “1” on the chart (the class will add additional choices to this chart as the unit progresses and revisit to add the effects to the chart as they learn them).
14. Next, have the students brainstorm what effects they think this choice had on the survival of the settlers and on the settlement. Write these answers on a separate sheet of chart paper titled “Choice # 1- Possible Effects.” This poster will be revisited in the next lesson.
15. Close the lesson by telling the students they will learn more about the occupations and other choices in the next lesson. Tell them to get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow they will all travel back in time and will have jobs in the Jamestown settlement.
Assessments:
Students will be assessed on the accuracy of the data they present on their occupations as well as the amount of effort they put into their created symbol and research. The writing on why their job was important will be assessed on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and depth of thought and amount of effort put into their paragraph. ELL students will not be required to have complex sentences but should have at least bullet points listing reasons the job was important.
Students will be assessed on the accuracy of their bar graphs. Teacher will also get a feel for how each student is approaching the theme of “choices affect our lives” by their analysis of the graph as recorded on the “Analysis” sheet.
Teacher will walk around the groups during work time and listen to conversations children are having about the lesson to see how they grasp the importance of the choice the Virginia Company made.
Time Needed: Four blocks-day 1, 60 minutes; day 2, 30 minutes; day 3 30 minutes; day 4, 45-60 minutes
Unit Essential Question: In early Jamestown, how did choices affect people’s lives?
Lesson Essential Question: How did the choices of the Virginia Company affect the fate of the early colonists?
Virginia Standards:
Social Studies
VS.1 The student will demonstrate skills for historical and geographical analysis and responsible citizenship, including the ability to
a) identify and interpret artifacts and primary and secondary source documents to understand events in history;
b) determine cause-and-effect relationships;
d) draw conclusions and make generalizations;
g) interpret ideas and events from different historical perspectives;
VS.3 The student will demonstrate knowledge of the first permanent English settlement in America by
a) explaining the reasons for English colonization;
c) identifying the importance of the charters of the Virginia Company of London establishing the Jamestown settlement;
f) describing the hardships faced by settlers at Jamestown and the changes that took place to ensure survival;
English
4.1 The student will use effective oral communication skills in a variety of settings.
b) Contribute to group discussions.
d) Use evidence to support opinions.
e) Use grammatically correct language and specific vocabulary to communicate ideas.
4.2 The student will make and listen to oral presentations and reports.
a) Use subject-related information and vocabulary.
b) Listen to and record information.
c) Organize information for clarity.
4.5 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of nonfiction.
d) Make simple inferences, using information from texts.
e) Draw conclusions, using information from texts.
f) Summarize content of selection, identifying important ideas and providing details for each
important idea.
g) Describe relationship between content and previously learned concepts or skills.
i) Identify new information gained from reading.
4.6 The student will demonstrate comprehension of information resources to research a topic.
b) Collect information, using the resources of the media center, including online, print, and
media resources.
c) Evaluate and synthesize information.
4.7 The student will write effective narratives, poems, and explanations.
a) Focus on one aspect of a topic.
c) Organize writing to convey a central idea.
d) Write several related paragraphs on the same topic.
e) Utilize elements of style, including word choice and sentence variation.
g) Use available technology.
4.8 The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization, spelling, punctuation, and
sentence structure.
a) Use subject-verb agreement.
b) Include prepositional phrases.
c) Eliminate double negatives.
d) Use noun-pronoun agreement.
e) Use commas in series, dates, and addresses.
f) Incorporate adjectives and adverbs.
g) Use the articles a, an, and the correctly.
h) Use correct spelling for frequently used words, including common homophones.
Math
4.14 The student will collect, organize, display, and interpret data from a variety of graphs.
Visual Arts
4.25 The student will formulate questions about works of art.
Science
4.1 The student will plan and conduct investigations in which
b) hypotheses are formulated based on cause-and-effect relationships;
NCSS Standards:
III, People, Places, & Environments
Social studies programs should include experiences that provide for the study of people, places, and environments, so that the learner can:
c. use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools such as atlases, data bases, grid sys-tems, charts, graphs, and maps to generate, manipulate, and interpret information;
g. describe how people create places that reflect ideas, personality, culture, and wants and needs as they design homes, playgrounds, classrooms, and the like;
Materials Needed:
- Chart paper
- Markers
- Notebook paper
- Pencils
- 3x5 cards with occupations and descriptions listed on them- 2 of each occupation, one for each student in the class
- Plain sheets of paper with lines at the bottom for occupation symbols and sentences
- Markers, crayons, watercolors and paintbrushes (water, cups, and paper towels)
- Laptops from the school laptop cart (one per pair of students)
- Graph paper for each student
- Copies of three worksheets at the bottom of this lesson, one of each per student
- Social Studies Reflection journals
Goals/Objectives:
- Students will brainstorm ideas of what occupations are necessary to start a successful colony
- Students will use data (original list of settlers who came over on the
first ships) to create a bar graph and then analyze the graph to consider how the settler choices of the Virginia Company may have affected the settlers' survival
- Students will take on the roles of various types of "workers" found in Jamestown, create a symbol to represent their occupation, and then share information about their profession at a "Colonial Career Fair"
- Students will create a cause/effect chart about choices that were made and how they affected the Jamestown settlers
- Students will brainstorm a class list of hypotheses about how the choices of the Virginia Company affected the settlers' survival
Activities/Instruction:
1. Remind children that yesterday they were asked by the Virginia Company to go to the Americas to start a colony in Virginia. Ask students if anyone can remember why they wanted to start a settlement in Virginia and take responses.
2. Tell students how Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in America. Explain that while the colony eventually became very successful, the first few years were very difficult and out of over 500 settlers that arrived at the settlement by 1610, only about 60 of them survived. Tell the students over the next week they are going to learn about the first few years of the settlement and try to figure out why so many people died.
3. Have students imagine that they are now a member of the Virginia Company of London. The king has just given them permission to start a new settlement in a far off land and they are so excited because they are sure they are going to get rich from this new venture. As a class, brainstorm a list of things that they will need to survive in the new land (list should include food, water, shelter, protection from dangers such as animals and other people, leadership etc.). If students have a long list of related items, create a web diagram to group like items together.
4. Next, in heterogeneous groups, have the students brainstorm a list of the types of people they think would help the settlement start smoothly, keeping in mind the list of things they’ll need to set up the colony. Ask: What jobs would be necessary to start the colony? What types of people will be important to bring? How many people of each occupation would they bring if they could only bring 100 people? What skills do they think would be important? What kinds of jobs would they want people to know how to do? Have students share out their thoughts in a whole group discussion and compile a list on chart paper.
5. After the class discussion, hand out a 3x5 card to each of the students to assign them occupations (figure out beforehand which students will have each occupation-it is recommended that two children, one high or average and one low, be paired together. The “Occupations in Jamestown” sheet used in the next lesson can be cut up into strips and each child given one).
6. Tell the students they have been assigned jobs in the new Jamestown settlement and that they must explain to the rest of the class in a career fair what their role was and why their job was important in the settlement. To do this, children should come up with a symbol of some sort to represent their job using paper and markers, crayons, or watercolors. Then they should write a paragraph about why they think this particular job was important.
After handing out the cards and given the directions, have the students with the same occupation work together to create a symbol and make sense of the job, with assistance from the teacher when necessary. Using the laptops from the school laptop cart, the students should be allowed to research their jobs to learn more about the duties of people in their profession. NOTE: This research can take as long as the teacher deems appropriate, though would likely take two class periods of 30-40 minutes each to research and prepare for their presentation at the "Colonial Career Fair." The career fair would take place on the third day of the lesson.
7. (Day 2) Continue research on occupations using laptops.
8. (Day 3) After the children have created their symbols, the class will get together for a “Colonial Career Fair” and will present their occupations to the class.
9. Wrap up lesson by telling the children that in the next lesson they will learn more about the occupations in Jamestown and choices that the Virginia Company made that affected the settlers in Jamestown.
10. (Day 4) Show the students the work of art located on this page. Have them talk about what they think is going on in the painting. Have them generate a list of questions about the painting as it pertains to the settlement. Examples: Are the people in the picture happy? What are they doing? Why aren't all of the people working? Who are the people sitting around?
11. After reviewing why the Virginia Company wanted to send people to Virginia to start a colony, hand out the “Occupations in Jamestown” and “First Settlers in Jamestown” sheets.
Tell the students that they are holding the list of the names of the first settlers to arrive in Jamestown. Ask students to use the data on the “First Settlers” sheet to make a bar graph using graph paper and crayons or markers (they will do this with their elbow partner). One of the occupations can be chosen to start the graph as a class if necessary. The bar graph should show how many people of each occupation there were in the colony. Explain that after they are done with the bar graph, they should analyze the graph. To do this they will consider the questions on the “Analysis of Jamestown Occupations” sheet.
12 After the children have worked on their graphs and completed their analyses, the class will come back together and have a class discussion about what they noticed about the graph. The teacher can pose the questions on the “Analysis of Jamestown Occupations” sheet and have students share out their answers. When the class gets to the question about missing groups of people, if “women” are not mentioned, the teacher should ask them about their thoughts on why the Virginia Company may have chosen to leave women in England. Teacher can then explain that many men were too prideful to do the cooking and cleaning and felt it was “women’s work” and this caused a lot of issues in the camp. After the discussion, the teacher should have the students put their graphs and analysis papers in their Social Studies folder in their desks for use in the next lesson.
13. Teacher has students take out their Social Studies journal and announces that they are going to make a class cause and effect T-chart about choices that affected Jamestown (which they should copy into their journals). Teacher tells the students that the question of the day is ‘How did the choices of the Virginia Company affect the fate of the colonists?’ What choice did the Virginia Company make that sticks out most to you?” The children should say something along the lines of “they chose to send a lot of gentlemen, not a lot of workers, and no women” This answer should be written next to the number “1” on the chart (the class will add additional choices to this chart as the unit progresses and revisit to add the effects to the chart as they learn them).
14. Next, have the students brainstorm what effects they think this choice had on the survival of the settlers and on the settlement. Write these answers on a separate sheet of chart paper titled “Choice # 1- Possible Effects.” This poster will be revisited in the next lesson.
15. Close the lesson by telling the students they will learn more about the occupations and other choices in the next lesson. Tell them to get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow they will all travel back in time and will have jobs in the Jamestown settlement.
Assessments:
Students will be assessed on the accuracy of the data they present on their occupations as well as the amount of effort they put into their created symbol and research. The writing on why their job was important will be assessed on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and depth of thought and amount of effort put into their paragraph. ELL students will not be required to have complex sentences but should have at least bullet points listing reasons the job was important.
Students will be assessed on the accuracy of their bar graphs. Teacher will also get a feel for how each student is approaching the theme of “choices affect our lives” by their analysis of the graph as recorded on the “Analysis” sheet.
Teacher will walk around the groups during work time and listen to conversations children are having about the lesson to see how they grasp the importance of the choice the Virginia Company made.
analysis_of_jamestown_occupations_bar_graph.pdf | |
File Size: | 159 kb |
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occupations_of_jamestown.pdf | |
File Size: | 172 kb |
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first_settlers_in_jamestown.pdf | |
File Size: | 214 kb |
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