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Sunday, March 21, 2010

Standards Sundays: Grade 5 westward expansion

Renewing an old topic.

I haven't done one of these Standards Sundays posts in a long time. Getting back to studying these has left me uninspired for some reason. However, knowing these things backwards and forwards just helps me understand where my students need to go in acquiring knowledge. Thus, I'm back!

Here's where I left off, the Social Studies/History standards for the fifth grade:

5.8 - Students trace the colonization, immigration, and settlement patterns of the
American people from 1789 to the mid-1800s, with emphasis on the role of economic incentives, effects of the physical and political geography, and transportation systems.


Immigration! Mexican-American War! Louisiana Purchase! Physical geography of the US! These topics are much more down my academic alley than any of the Pre-Revolutionary/Revolutionary War stuff.

Don't get me wrong, the Revolutionary War was important, but it's a little anti-climactic to me. There's so much other stuff that shaped the way the nation is today. Stuff I never knew when I was in grade school. Stuff that formed American policy on trade, agriculture, immigration, and even on international affairs. Everything is interconnected in some way.

That, and I'll get to have Oregon Trail tournaments. Awesomeness!

2 comments:

vicky said...

oman, i'd love to see how the Oregon Trail is played these days. those were some good times!

bun2bon said...

Oregon Trail is the best! I can't tell you how many times I died forging that last river. So much fun!