Lesson 3

Lesson Topic: Social Studies/Math Colony Mini-unit
Grade Level: Fifth grade
Teacher of Lesson: Joy Augustine
Time: 35 minutes

Objectives

1. Students will use their math skills to solve measurement equivalencies. Application
2. Students will demonstrate their ability to work cooperatively. Comprehension 3. Students will manipulate string to show the amount of the space allowed a family on the ship ride over to the colonies and once in their new home. Application. 4. Students will summarize the experience by writing a journal. Synthesis

Materials

• Tape or rope to create rectangles the size of a single bed and a one-room home, paper, pencils for students to use when making computations and write journals, crayons/markers for students to illustrate their journals

Procedure

1. Invite the students to remember a time when they went on a trip that took a long time to reach their destination. Ask students to close their eyes and imagine that they are on that trip now. Are you in a car, in a train or on a plane? How long will it take for you to get there? Are you comfortable? Are you having fun? Ask volunteers to briefly describe what they feel.
2. Ask students to close their eyes and imagine they are in their homes for a minute. Do you see separate rooms? How many are there? Again, volunteers can tell about their homes.
3. Explain that today we going to be doing some imagining--but this time, we are going to imagine how other people felt. We are going to imagine what the journey to Jamestown or Plymouth was like for the colonists.
4. On the chalkboard, write the measurements of the amount of space allowed to each family on the ships. Ask students to copy these down on paper. Remind them that the trip to Jamestown took five months and the journey to Plymouth on the Mayflower took sixty five days. Ask them to figure out approximately how many months and days that is. Mention that now a plane ride from England to Chicago takes about seven hours.
   Space on a ship approximately the size of a single bed 6 x 3 ft
   An average first home 16 x 20 ft or 5 x 6 meters
5. Ask students to work in groups to find a way to use a yard stick to measure string that will represent the space on the ship and in colonial homes. (Can tell students we only have yardsticks, no rulers, in our classroom) Groups should consist of students sitting next to and across from each other. Circulate the room to see that all groups realize that they need to convert feet to yards.
6. After making the conversions, move to the gym or cafeteria where students can create the space on the ship and the space of a home. Ask each group to combine with another group of four. Ask each group of eight to create the rectangular spaces. Once these rectangles are made, explain that on the ship each adult had this much space. In this space, the adult had to cook, take care of children, store possessions, and spend most of their time. Ask the group members to step inside their ship space and their home space. Add a few chairs to represent furniture or possessions. This will give students a more concrete image to think about than just trying to imagine it. Discuss how it would feel to live like this in such a cramped space.
7. Have students return to their seats and close their eyes to begin imagining spending a lot of time in those cramped spaces. Next have students add an odor that existed because of the unsanitary conditions to their mental images. (Think of smelly garbage dumpsters, a farm or zoo.) Add to this extreme temperatures--no air conditioning in the summer and no central heating in the winter.
8. Invite students to open their eyes. Now students should take out their journals and write about the experience. Suggest to students they include how they felt, how they’d feel knowing they had to live like that for a couple of months. How’d they feel when land was sighted? How did you feel living with your large family in a tiny house with not heat or air conditioning?
9. When finished with the writing, student can illustrate their work. This may have to be finished in study hall or as homework.

Day 2

1. Ask a few students to share their journals with the class.
2. Students will turn their journals in to the teacher.

Evaluation

1. Were students able to successfully compute the feet into yards and days into months as evidenced by their work on paper. Circulate the room and help those who need it.
2. Did students work well groups? Circulate the room to observe.
3. Were students able to manipulate the string to represent the space on the ship and size of a colonial home?
4. Did students effectively relate this experience and their feelings about it in their journals?

Reflection

How did the lesson go? How did I do? What revisions are needed?

Extensions

As a challenge the teacher could give the measurements in inches or in the metric system and ask them to convert them into feet or yards.

Bibliography

This activity was adapted from an activity by Terry Healy in the Oct./Nov. 1995 issue of Mailbox.