Lesson Overview:

Students will explore the pioneers' and settlers' ways of life through drama and song. Crossing the prairie, living in a sod house, and experiencing the growth of Abilene, Kansas, will be explored using drama games, role-play, written text, and songs.

Length of Lesson:

Three 45-minute class periods

Notes:

This lesson is particularly suitable for students in grade 3.

Instructional Objectives:

Students will:

• identify reasons pioneers moved to the West.
• identify those qualities of the United States that promote the movement of immigrants to the U.S. as part of the continuing history of the nation by identifying the risk of new and controversial ideas in opening new opportunities for many.
• identify examples of human adaptation.
• recognize that people everywhere have similar social needs, motivations, and desires but may express them differently by expressing one’s own views and by accepting others’ points of views.
• read and interpret fiction and non-fiction passages about people, places, and events in the early history of U.S. political systems describing the immigrants who came to America and their reasons for immigration.
• identify reasons for the growth of prairie towns.
• discuss how wants and needs are met over time.

Supplies:

• Shoe box for each child
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Markers or cyayons
• Clothing for plays that represent the west and prairie times

Instructional Plan:

Warm Up

Read Lewis and Papa by Barbara Joose. Students should listen for and note essential items (courtesy of The Oregon Trail Web site) that could be packed in a covered wagon (courtesy of The End of the Oregon Trail Web site.

Developmental Activity

Play the drama game, "Packed My Suitcase." Change the name to "Packed My Wagon." The things to be packed must be historically accurate. Record the answers on the board.

To play:

1. All players sit in a circle.
2. First person says "I’m going to pack my wagon for my trip West. I’m putting in ________."
3. As the speaker tells what he/she will take, the speaker makes an action appropriate to the word. All students copy the action.
4. The person next to him/her now repeats what was just said and the action. Then he/she adds a new item and action.
5. The game is complete when all the players in the circle have added something new to go into the wagon.

Guided Practice

Pass out the EnchantedLearning.com's Covered Wagon handout. Have students recall the information from "Packed My Wagon" and record their ideas inside the covered wagon outline. Students should then circle the five most necessary items (in their opinion) on the list. Allow them to share these with the class. Tally and graph class results.

Read, or have students read, either Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner or I Have Heard of a Land by Joyce Carol Thomas for background information on settlers in a sod house on the prairie. Both of the stories are based on fact and involve main characters who are African Americans.

Independent Activities

Have students read "An Early Prairie Town" on pages 154-157 in From Sea to Shining Sea and answer all review questions. From the collection, Plays of the Old West, Volume One: Grades K-3, by L.E. McCullough, have copies made of "Git Along Little Dogies" on pages 43-52 (about a cattle drive through Abilene, Kansas) and "The Little Sod Shanty" on pages 91-105 (about life on the prairies in a sod house). Both plays include traditional folk songs and stage designs and directions.

Break students into cooperative groups of 4 or 5 and have them discuss the topics on the worksheet, The Way West: Group Response.

Divide the class into two groups and assign a play to each group. Decide if the students will be performing the pieces as full plays, with costumes, props, and scenery; as Readers Theater, where students just read to the audience and one student reads the stage directions; or as a radio play to be recorded on tape that can be played again. Have each student sketch a set design for the piece they will be performing.

Have each student make a diorama of the set in a shoe box. On the back of the shoebox, the student should write an explanation of the design. Allow several days for practice and designs to be completed.

Assessment:

Use the Assessment Rubric to evaluate the students' work.

Assess the students on this criteria:

• The review questions on page 157 are corrected.
• The plays are presented in the selected way. The participation and cooperation of each member of the cast and crew will be evaluated.
• Devise a checklist or rubric for the set design and diorama. Historical and environmental elements should be part of the evaluation.

Sources:

Print:

• Armento, Beverly J. "An Early Prairie Town" in From Sea to Shining Sea. Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
• Brenner, Barbara. Wagon Wheels. Harper and Row, 1984.
• Joose, Barbara and Jon Van Zyle. Lewis and Papa—Adventure on the Santa Fe Trail. Chronicle Books, 1998.
• McCullough, L.E. Plays of the Wild West, Volume One: Grades K-3. A Smith and Kraus Book, 1997.
• Thomas, Joyce Carol. Floyd Cooper (ill.) I Have Heard of a Land. Joanna Colter Books, Harper Collins Publishers, 1998.

Authors:

• Mary Beth Bauernschub, Teacher
  Kingsford Elementary School
  Mitchellville, MD