The Oregon Trail

 
Preview

 
Overview:
- Preview the Oregon Trail

- Define pioneer, emigrant and immigrant

- Begin reading a historical fiction diary of a child on the Oregon Trail

Materials:
- Whiteboard marker
- Westward to Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary
- Interactive Notebooks

Procedures:
Have a class discussion on what the students know about the Oregon Trail. Write on the corner of the white board the main points that the students know about the Oregon Trail, and keep it there so students can see how much they have learned in the next week.

Write the word “pioneer” on the white board. Ask the students to write in their Interactive Notebook what the word pioneer means to them.
            -Pioneer: An early settler in a new territory. All the people on the Oregon Trail.

Write the word emigrant and immigrant on the board. Ask the students what the difference between these two words is.
            -An emigrant leaves their land to live in another country. The pioneers who went on the    Oregon Trail were emigrants because they were technically leaving the United States  Territory.
            - An immigrant is a person who once lived somewhere else and now lives in your country 

Read around twenty pages in the book Westward to Home: Joshua's Oregon Trail Diary.