We have been working on a unit about the 13 colonies. We are only studying the basics of who, what, where and whys of the founding of the colonies. We will be using Homeschool in the Woods Time Travelers The American Revolution after we complete this study so I needed to fill in the gap between our Explorers study and the American Revolution. I’ve been able to find a few things to use for our lapbook and have made some. I am still working on a couple of things to add to our. We hope to complete this unit by the end of the month. I haven’t completely laid out the lesson plan, but wanted to share what we have so far.

These are a few of the sites we are using:

Education World has a neat lesson plan for Colonial America including a link to George Washington’s Rules of Civility, which makes for excellent copy work.

The History Place has a time line for colonial America.

And if you haven’t found anything useful at these sites let’s not forget Mr. Donn’s site. His site is a great stepping off point for lessons and Power Point presentations.

For each state we will be doing a wheel with a window. The inside has been broken into 8-pie shapes with the following labels for each section: year founded, founded by, first settlement, first leader, chief economics, religion, government, and reason for colonization. The top circle has the state name and an outline map of the state. The kids will mark the important places on these mini maps and fill out the information on the inside circle.

Inside Circle– (four circles per page) (you will need to print 3 of these)

New England Colonies

Middle Colonies

Southern Colonies

Georgia- (includes top and bottom)

We are planning to make match book biographies of famous colonists and creating models of the different regions’ homes. When (and if) I get my lesson plan nailed down, I will share. Right now we are watching videos and reading books from the library and taking it from there.