Explorers Exploration BUNDLE Task Cards Posters Graphic Organizers

Explorers - the Americas

This bundle includes three resources:

Explorers to the Americas – 24 Graphic Organizers;

Explorers to the Americas – 24 Explorer Cards, 8 Task Cards, 8 Quiz Cards, and

Explorers to the Americas – Set of 24 Explorer Posters and Student Templates.

These resources may be seen individually in my store:

Explorers to the Americas 24 Graphic Organizers

Explorers to the Americas Task Cards and Quiz Cards

Explorers to the Americas Poster Set

Please note that due to size restrictions the Poster preview is not included but may be seen in the individual listing above.

These three resources are also part of my mega bundle of six which can be seen here:

Explorers to the Americas Bundle of 6 Items

Each item above covers the following 24 explorers:

Roald Amundsen, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Daniel Boone, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, Christopher Columbus, Hernan Cortes, James Cook, Francis Drake, Leif Ericson, Martin Frobisher, Henry Hudson, Sieur de La Salle, Meriwether Lewis & William Clark (one poster), Alexander Mackenzie, Ferdinand Magellan, Robert Peary & Matthew Henson (one poster), Francisco Pizarro, Juan Ponce de Leon, Pierre Radisson, Walter Raleigh, George Vancouver, and Giovanni da Verrazano.

Each explorer has a graphic organizer for students to complete with simple biographical facts, the explorer’s important accomplishments, and what we can find today at the sites or area of exploration. Students are also provided space on each sheet to draw a map of the explorer’s route(s). This activity is designed so that it is flexible for the classroom teacher to use: it can be used as an introductory activity, a review and summative activity, or as a part of individual project or a classroom display. It will help the student organize information on various explorers. It is also designed so that teachers do not have to use all of the organizers and can use them in any order.

I have included four pages of an answer key with some information on each explorer so that the teacher can check it against student work. Not all data on each explorer is included of course, but enough to serve as a guideline.

Set of 24 Explorer Cards, 8 Task Cards, 8 Quiz Cards:

Explorers to the Americas – Included in this product are 24 Explorer Cards of the individuals listed above who helped explore and chart North, Central, and South America, as well as 8 Quiz cards, 8 Task cards, a quiz card answer sheet for the student, and 26 answer key pages for the explorers listed below.

The 8 quiz cards have one question each that the students answer on an answer sheet. Students can work through all 8 cards independently or as a group assignment. The quiz cards have 26 pages of answer key for the teacher’s use – or for the students to check their work (there are additional pages for Matthew Henson and William Clark although they are grouped with Peary and Lewis on their explorer cards).

Eight task cards are included as well. These are small projects. No answer keys are included for the tasks, as the projects are creative and individual in scope - the "Quiz Card" questions are fact-based.

The Explorer Cards, Quiz Cards, and Task Cards are designed so that the classroom teacher can use all or as many as he or she wishes - if some of the Explorer Cards are not used, this will not make a difference to the overall organization of the product. With this in mind, I have not numbered the Explorer Cards or Quiz Cards. The Task Cards are numbered 1-8; I have included a blank Task Card sheet for the teacher to add tasks or replace tasks. Also included is a one-page list of the 26 explorers, numbered, in alphabetical order.

A classroom set printed in color and laminated would be best, and they all print attractively in grayscale so that students could have individual sets of the cards as well. The cards could also be used in a center for students to work on independently. They can be also displayed as mini-posters.

Poster Set of 24 Explorers and Student Templates

This set of 24 posters of Explorers to the Americas includes 8” by 10.5” posters of the explorers listed above who made important contributions to the exploration and ultimate settlement of North, South, and Central America.

The men chosen for this set represent the exploring nations, geographic areas explored in the Americas, and different time periods of exploration. There are two versions of the posters for Lewis & Clark and Peary & Henson, giving you a choice of which layout you prefer.

The posters reproduce well - I took a couple of them to Staples and had them digitally printed and they turned out extremely well. I had them printed on both heavier stock paper and regular computer paper, and both methods worked well. Four outline colours are used and each poster is unique as I varied the inside borders.

If you do not have access to colour printing, or it is cost prohibitive, the posters also print out well in grayscale and could be mounted on coloured paper to be displayed.

I have also included a student template for each explorer so that you can have your students create their own posters. An example can be seen in the thumbnails and the preview file. All the images I used are available online - in fact, there are more images for students to choose from as I only used images available through wikicommons.org (all in the public domain).