Lesson Plan #:CC-0016

Second Grade Lesson 2: Who Were the Settlers of Jamestown?

Objectives: The student will be able to:

1. locate Plymouth, Massachusetts, Jamestown, and Virginia on a map.

2. recognize that the settlers of Jamestown were different from the settlers of Plymouth.

3. understand how the leaders of the Jamestown settlement were chosen.

Description of lesson/activity:

1. On a map of the United States locate with the children Plymouth, Massachusetts, Jamestown, and Virginia. Research and show the routes of the Jamestown settlers and Pilgrims to the "New World."

2. Read The Virginia Colony , by Dennis B. Fradin, pp. 21-31. List reasons why these colonists came to America. For additional information, see The First Book of the Early Settlers , by Louise Dickenson Rich, and Founding the American Colonies , by Diana Reische.

3. Discuss why these reasons were different from the Pilgrims reasons for coming to America.

4. Put the names of four children in a box. Tell the children you are going to open the box and tell who the leaders of the next activity will be. Discuss why or why not this is a good way to choose leaders. Each leader will be in charge of a class group. Each class group will decide on a role play of some aspects of the life of the Pilgrims or the Jamestown settlers.

5. Children by themselves or in a group could make a picture as a model of the Jamestown settlement.