Pioneer Unit Study: Explore Settler Life and Frontier History

How can a glittering cloud destroy crops? How does disobedience affect future events as well as relationships?

How would it feel to have grasshoppers crawling all over you or to listen to them chewing? Recognize the impact of grasshoppers on the pioneers’ crops, and learn the body parts of this insect. Learn about weather and types of storms. Discover ways pioneer communities worked together for the common good of the group. Use a Venn diagram to compare the characters’ physical descriptions and personality traits. Design a coordinate map of the prairie, and play coordinate tic-tac-toe. Write an autobiographical story and a cinquain. Use the five senses to compare a plum and a prune. Use charts and graphs to record and display information. Do a demonstration, grow crystals, construct a barometer, and create a rainbow. Use a variable to represent an unknown value. Represent rational numbers as a fraction or decimal. Write numbers in expanded form. Create a floor plan, and build a model home.

This unit includes written information about pioneers and uses On The Banks of Plum Creek as a literary focus.

Student workbook pages are designed to reinforce the daily concepts and are included within the unit.

Includes:

• Documentation of skills taught within the unit study
• Detailed lesson plans
• Step-by-step instructions for teaching your child
• Activities for different learning styles
• Enrichment activities to challenge advanced learners
• Handwriting guidelines
• Worksheets for practice with each lesson
• Reading practice pages
• Literature List
• Materials List
• Templates for resources:
  • Calendar
  • Bingo Game Board
  • Pattern Blocks
  • United States Map
  • World Map
  • Spelling Squares
  • Place Value Board
  • Base Ten Pieces
  • Square Tiles
  • Hangman Game Board
  • Sink the Ship Game Board
  • Writing Rubric