Daily History -Civil War, Underground Railroad, Reconstruction Period Activities

Civil War | Slavery | Underground Railroad | Reconstruction | Abolitionists | Harriet Tubman | Abraham Lincoln | Daily Lessons to teach American History while also improving essential reading and writing skills!

Take students on a journey... back in time to the 1860's. A time when America was divided and the laws did not treat everyone equally. A time when there were over 4,000,000 African slaves in the southern United States. Abraham Lincoln was trying to hold the United States together, and the southern states were trying to break it apart. Abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman were secretly helping southern slaves escape to freedom. A new kind of railroad was being used daily... The Underground Railroad. The Civil War was about to begin... This tumultuous time, is a turning point in American history...

This slice from our Daily American History series covers the important events of the the Civil War, Slavery, the Underground Railroad, and the post-war Reconstruction period. These dramatic and dangerous events were instrumental in the continuing development of our nation.

EASY-TO-READ LESSONS:

Tackle social studies topics while simultaneously focusing on improving essential reading and writing skills. To aid comprehension, font sizes are larger, and a words-to-know section is included to help students get familiar with any challenging vocabulary that may be found in a story. Lessons use short, easy-to-read sentences, a lower 4th-5th grade reading level, simple vocabulary, and repetition/review.

DAILY MINI-LESSONS:

Each three-part lesson is divided into small, manageable, daily mini-lessons. Skill-based reading and writing exercises follow each mini-lesson and are designed to help students understand what they have read and retain key historical information. To encourage students to read and then re-read the text, there is a “locating the information” activity at the bottom of each story page. This simple exercise helps to reinforce key facts from the passage.

CAPTIVATING ILLUSTRATIONS:

Keep students engaged in their learning with the historical illustrations and photos that are sprinkled throughout the lessons. This strong picture-text correspondence has been proven to improve overall comprehension and reading enjoyment.

TEACHING GUIDE & ENRICHMENT IDEAS:

To help you and your students get the most out of these lessons, an in-depth teacher guide, important people and places lists, words-to-know lists, enrichment ideas, and answer key are also included. Enrichment Ideas offer suggestions for discussion, research, and higher level comprehension questions.

READABILITY:

A specific challenge for this book was being true to history while simplifying the content. An effort was made to create stories that were rich with important historical information, yet on a level that would be understood by those students reading below grade level. To accomplish this, short sentences, simple explanations, and plenty of repetition were used whenever possible.

Reading Level: 4.0 - 5.5

Interest Level: 4 - 12

Page Count: 35