Lesson 4 - Vizcaino

 This is our last Spanish explorer by ship.  Vizciano was not so much an explorer as a setteler.  He was charged with the task of scoping out Alto California and if he found a good spot, to start a settlement.  This is a definite shift in the attitude of Spain.  They aren't just visiting and trading, but moving in.  Again, 

“Exploration of the California Coast” by Clarissa Aykroyd has a whole chapter devoted to Vizcaino and introduces Junipero Serra and the California Missions.  Here is where we transition into the Missions. This book is the only one at our library that has anything on Vizciano in the Children's section.  I am sure there is more info if you want to go dig it out of a research book and then teach your student from your own notes.  If this is your thing - GO FOR IT!  Otherwise, I think he is important enough to mention because he is the first one to come to Alto California with the intent of settling, but he is minor enough that I am not going to put my effort here.  We are marching on.

ACTIVITIES:

Take notes of your reading.  Use the note sheet that you created in Lesson 1 of this unit.

Take one of those larger houses that I warned you about in the overview and glue it to your map of San Diego to represent the first mission.  Later we will add more missions as we travel up El Camino Real.

Lesson 3: Sir Francis Drake - Pirate for the Queen!

Here you go!  This is a fun one.  Enjoy.  The same book:  “Exploration of the California Coast” by Clarissa Aykroyd, devotes a chapter of easy reading to Drake and his exploits.  There is also a bunch of information online if you want to google it.  Our library has a ton of children's books on Drake.  One that looks interesting and I may just give in and go get it is: "You would not want to explore with Sir Francis Drake" by David Salariya.  Remember to have fun.  There are so many possibilities here, your imagination is the limit.  Please post any ideas that you might have for the rest of us to share.

 Extension Questions:
 

Was Drake's piracy right or wrong?  Why?  Based on what?

How did his piracy affect Spain & England and the war?  How might history have been different if Spain had received all of that wealth?  What might the world look like today?  What about California?  Might it be different now?  Why?

If you are coming at this from a Christian perspective: How did God use Drake?  Can you see God's hand affecting his travels?  Did God block some areas of exploration and not others?  Why? 

Activities:

Take notes of your reading.  Use the note sheet that you created in Lesson 1 of this unit.

Time Line:  June 17, 1579 Drake landed in a harbor in CA. 

Make a British flag and put it on a toothpick.  Add it to your map in Drake's Bay or  San Francisco Bay.

Lesson 2 - Cabrillo

Today we get to learn about Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.  Again, I used the book  “Exploration of the California Coast” by Clarissa Aykroyd.  There is a whole chapter on him and his exploration up the coast of California.  It is a nice easy read.  You can decide what information you want your student to find as you read and then make a note sheet to fill out.  My son and I did this little task together.  It helped him to know what information he was looking for.  We included - Birth: when/where, Death: when/where/how, Where explored, Interaction with which native tribes, How did he treat them, etc.  You get the idea.  What ever information that you deem important. 

ACTIVITIES:
Take notes of your reading.  Use the note sheet that you created in Lesson 1 of this unit.

Time line - 1542 Cabrillo explores California
                 1543 Cabrillo dies (optional)

Dust off that topographical map that your student made at the beginning of the year.

Make a couple of Spanish flags and put them in San Diego and Monterey - where Cabrillo landed.  

This is a good chance to do map making. Have your child make a map of their neighborhood. They can explore, make notes and map it out. Is there a park where you live? Maybe after they make their map they can chart their walk to the park just like the early explorers. Is it confusing? Now do you understand how the Spanish could have thought that maybe California was an island? Or why they would have thought that there might be a water way through North America? You don't know until you look. Have fun with this. It doesn't have to be perfect, or even right. The Spanish weren't right either. This is about learning and understanding.

Another thing that we did was to write a poem or rhyme covering Cabrillo's explorations and where he went.  This would be great to incorporate into your poem unit for composition.  By putting dates into the poem it will help cement it into their minds.  We have already done the poem section for composition so I let him just make up a rhyme or lymric.  We worked on it together to make it fun.

Lesson 1 Cortez

Today's Study is on Cortez.  Talk about his conquest of Mexico and further exploration. You can use the book  “Exploration of the California Coast” by Clarissa Aykroyd for part of this.  Our library has a book called "Cortez and the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards in 1521" by Bernal Diaz del Castillo.  It is an abridged version of an eyewitness account.  The book is in the Children's section, so I imagine it is a pretty easy read.  I haven't actually looked at it though.  Check out your local library and see what you can find.  I used our regular 4th grade text book and just read through the one chapter.  Not too deep but it gave us the basic idea.  Using CAVA's curriculum for the past 5 years, we studied Cortez last year so my son already had an idea about his transactions with the natives in Mexico and the bloodbath that followed.  We didn't really go into that here, we talked more about his exploration and the Spanish Galleons.

Activities:

Don't forget your timeline!  Let's take the time to mark important dates.

 

Unit 3 – Early Exploration & Settlement

In this unit we are starting in on the European involvement in our state history. There is a lot to cover but resources can be hard to come by. As I write this I am in a bit of a time crunch – having just come off of the holidays and running a bit behind. I am going to go through this more lightly that I had originally planned. Feel free though to take your time and dig deeper. If you are in Southern California there are probably monuments etc to go see. Take advantage of this! Go see them and talk about what it must have been like to see this area for the first time. If you are in other parts of our state, then go out into the more rural parts. Up in the hills or to a park where you can see what the trees were like and the terrain was like. Imagine you are an explorer and have to carry all your supplies. There is no real “end spot” or “destination” to your trip. How does that feel? What is that like? If the weather is good and you are so inclined, this would be a great time for a local backpacking trip. Keep it close and simple. It doesn't have to be through Destination Wilderness or anything. Hike from one side of the hill to the other and maybe spend the night outside. These are just ideas. Again, have fun!

In this unit we will cover:

Study British

- put British flag on topographical map

- is there a monument in SF to go see?

Study Spanish explorers

  - who and why

  - add flags

  -forts

       - fort field trip

Study Russians

  -add forts to to pographical map with Russian flag.

  - field trip to Fort Ross

A quick note about Fort Ross. They have an awesome program for schools it is an overnight program. The problem is that you have to sign up for it a year in advance and have to have a group to go! If you are in the middle of 4^th grade now, it will be too late. If you live near by, go for it! Otherwise, it doesn't sound like there is a lot to see that makes it worth a long drive or trip. More information can be found here: http://www.fortrossstatepark.org/ Registration opens in April for the overnight trips the following school year. They are on a first come first served basis, so have your stuff together!

ABOUT EARLY EXPLORERS &PIRATES!:

Some Early Spanish Explorers were Hernan Cortez and Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. They explored, mapped and traded with the Spanish settlement in Manilla. They had their Spanish Galleons sailing that rout for 125 years. Then came Sir Frances Drake from England. His job was to raid the Spanish ships for England. Spain and England were at war at the time and this was a major source of funding for the Spanish. Drake was so successful that one of his ships almost sank from the weight. If your child is interested in pirates – go with it! My family is descended from what we believe to be British pirates. This is an opportunity to tie my son's family tree to history. It is also fun to dig up the pirate theme. Since my son isn't totally into pirates and we took a bit of a long break over the holidays and are now a bit behind where we want to be, I just mentioned it and moved on. You could have a lot of fun here though.  There is a website that I found that has an account of Drakes voyage by Francis Pretty, One of Drake's Gentlemen at arms.  Go here: http://www.canadahistory.com/sections/news/drake1.htm  There is a whole conspiracy part to this story too.  It is said that Drake thought he found the Northwest passage and Queen Elizabeth I kept everything secret and the secret died with them all.  Now, 500 years later, the old maps and documents have been found.  Interesting stuff if you want to dig it out. 

PLACES FOR INFORMATION:

I cheated a bit here. I have a friend who teaches 4^th grade and passes on a copy of her curriculum: “History – Social Science California Studies” by Houghton Mifflin. I was having a hard time finding a lot of easy to read information on these explorers. I also ran out of time so here is my cop out. I am sure that there are good books and websites out there for information that would be much more thorough than what I did. Please feel free to post and share if you find something.

There is a book called: “Exploration of the California Coast” by Clarissa Aykroyd, that I got from the library for our next lesson. It has chapters on Cortez, Cabrillo, Drake, Vizcaino and more. This book might be a good place to start and could serve as your main research material. It is easy enough to read (for a non fiction) that the kids can take turns reading with you.

We have all imagined being explorers at one time or another in our lives. Play into this and HAVE FUN!

HEADS UP!

We are going to be gluing little houses/missions/forts etc to our map in this unit.  That means that you need to track down said houses/missions/forts etc.  Don't panic!  Hit up your local Goodwill or some such.  See what kind of games they have.  Monopoly has houses and hotels aka settlements and missions!  If all else fails, get out that leftover salt clay (or make some more) and fashion them yourselves.  Nothing fancy!  Simple and easy here, ok?

Lesson 7a Construction, Power Point & Review

This is your last house!  YAY!  Enjoy.

Go ahead and work on your power point.  This would also be a good time to look back at what you have learned this unit.  Review all of your native tribes and talk about the similarities and differences.  How did the tribes in the North Western Region live as compared to those in the Colorado River Region?  How were they similar?  How do you think these differences affected how they were treated by the Spanish and other early settlers?  This is a good time for not just review but deeper conversations about their lifestyle, history and future.  What can we learn from them?  If you are doing this from a Biblical perspective, you can talk about God's hand as well as compare them to people in the Bible.  See where your conversation takes you and enjoy your time together.

Lesson 7 The Colorado River Region

This is our last region!!!  YAY!  Don't forget to color your region on your map.  We chose to study the Mojave Indians.  Again we used "The Library of Native Americans 'The Mojave of California and Arizona'" by Jack S. Williams.  You know what to do here, so finish up. :)

Lesson 6a Construction and Power Point

Construct your houses, if you are so inclined. 

Here is where we turn our research on the Chumash into paragraphs or captions for pictures that you find online or in your books.  Those in turn get put intot he power point.  Have fun!

Lesson 6 Southern Region

For the Southern Region we studied the Chumash Indians.  We read the book “The Library of Native Americans ‘The Chumash of California’”  by Jack S. Williams.  It is part of the same series that we have used all along.  There are a lot of books available to choose from for this tribe.  They are quite interesting and you could really spend some time here if you wanted to.  We filled out the note paper as we read, just like the other tribes.

Lesson 5a Construction and power point

It's that time!  If you are still doing the construction...good for you!  I have given up on it.  We need to move on. 

Work on your power point today.  Work on turing those notes into paragraphs or captions for pictures that you find online or in your books.  Have fun!

Lesson 5 – Great Basin Cultures

            Again, this is a HUGE region.  It looks like most or all of the tribes in this region were nomadic hunter/gatherers.  We picked the Mono to learn about.  I am using another book from the library and is part of the same series as the one I used for the Ohlone.  It is called “The Library of Native Americans ‘The Mono of California’” by Jack S Williams.  Again, we are spending two days going through this book and filling out the form that I mentioned in the overview. 

Lesson 4a – Construction & Power Point

          Same thing as we have been doing.  For us, I am not having him actually construct a house here because we went on a field trip where he got to see a real one already made!  He will be uploading pictures from his trip though and using that as a main focus of his power point.

Lesson 4 - Central Cultures

Today we learned about the tribes of the Central Region.  Now, this is a huge region so for now we are going to focus on our local tribe – the Ohlone.  I am using a book that I picked up at the library called “The Library of Native Americans ‘The Ohlone of California’” by Jack S Williams.  I like this book because it has plenty of pictures and interesting facts.  Some of the other books had a few facts and then jumped right into how the natives were mistreated.  While this is part of our history, it is not where I want the focus to be for us.  We will discuss it but our focus is going to be understanding how the natives lived and survived in our area and what their culture is like.  We are spending 2 days going through this book and finding interesting facts.  We will also be going on a field trip to learn about them too later this week.

Lesson 3a – Construction & Power Point

            Time to build another house!  This time though they had two houses!  One for winter and one for summer.  We cut down on the size here and made both fit in one square on the board.  We made the house out of the craft tooth picks.  We made the tent out of craft sticks that I split down the middle to make thinner.  We rubberbanded the ends together and stuck the bottom part into the salt dough.  Then my son wove brown paper to represent the mats that they used to cover their summer tents.  This we cut and wrapped around the poles and glued together.  (hint: once the paper is woven, cover the back in painters tape or some such.  Then when you cut it, it holds together.)  My son even added a totem pole out of the scraps.  We took pictures of his final house and uploaded it to a new power point and then wrote a description of the house.

Summer Home 

Winter Home

Lesson 3 – North Eastern Cultures

            I had a hard time finding information on the Modoc tribe.  When looking for picutres related to the Modoc (after we finished our study of the tribe) I found this site: http://www.nps.gov/labe/historyculture/modochomeland.htm  I wish I had had this a week ago!  It is actually pretty good.  Other than that we went off of the Sunsplash Publication mentioned in the overview. Most of the information online besides the above mentioned on the Modoc was about their re-location to Oklahoma and Captain Jack’s stand against the US which ended up with both he and 4 others being hung….hum….so stick mostly with the descriptions in “Do California” or the government website – unless you want to jump ahead in the timeline and talk about this.  Here is one link I found with some info: http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/modoc/modochist.htm

Lesson 2a - Construction & Power Point

Since we are building the little houses this takes a separate day.  My son took pictures of his final house and uploaded it to a new power point and then wrote a description of the house.

Here is our sad little house for the Northwestern region.  It is sporting the pitched roof and front porch made of rocks.  It is also showing the 18" circular opening.  Please note that I am not going all "Perfectionist" here (which is really hard for me).  I'm doing it quick and moving on.  The idea is that he learns about the natives and it gets stuck in his brain - not that he hates history and crafts.  The only reason we are doing this is because he wants to. :)

Lesson 2 - North Western Cultures

For this lesson we read through these sites.  We picked the Modoc Tribe.  We used the map mentioned in the overview and he colored the area and marked the approximate locations of the two main tribes.  I then made up a form here for my son to fill out as we go through the different tribes.  From this he will have a quick reference to review and compare the cultures, dwellings, beliefs and lives of the people in different areas.  Below are the sites for the Modoc tribe.

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/modoc/modochist.htm        

http://www.native-languages.org/modoc.htm

Lesson 1 – Time Line

            Today we make a timeline.  I am using a large roll of craft paper and putting it up in my hallway.  Why my hallway?  Because I DON”T want it in my kitchen! Lol  It is the only usable wall space in my house.  You can put this any place that you have a decent amount of space.  This is going to stay up for the school year so pick your place accordingly. J

            Step 1: Measure out your paper according to your wall.  For me, I want to cover 600 years and include California’s early exploration and settlement, Major European and North American events as well as some family genealogy – so I need some space.

            Step 2: BEFORE you put this beautiful piece of art up on your wall you may want to draw your timeline while it is flat on the floor.  Divide it into sixths to mark each century, then into 10^th s or 5^th s (depending on how detailed you want to get) then add your dates.   Keep the dates fairly small.  Use a nice black pen for all of this.

            Step 3: Now in light pencil draw 4 more lines parallel to your timeline.  These will be used to represent California History, European History, North American History and Family History. 

            Step 4: Add in the dates that you know.  I will list some from our previous history lessons here but you should put some in that your child can relate to and understand.  For us I am going to put our family history on the shortest stick down to the first pencil line.  My family came to California in 1970 so I am going to use GREEN to represent our family timeline so I will draw a green line from 1970 down to the first pencil line and write “Papa comes to CA”.   I will use the 2^nd pencil line to represent European History so for Columbus I will draw a BLUE line from 1492 down to the 2^nd line and then write “Columbus discovers New World”.  The third pencil line will represent North American History so say 1776 – I will pick RED and draw a line down to the 3^rd pencil line and write “Declaration of Independence”.  The forth pencil line will be for California’s History.  This one you can mark as you go. 

            This is a big project.  You might want to do some prep work ahead of time and then get your child to help you fill in important dates that they remember from history as well as family dates.  When were they born?  When were you born?  When were grandparent’s born?  Who was the first person from your family to come to CA?  When?  When did your family come to the US? 

Unit 2 – Time Line and Native Tribes

Overview and objectives:

Make timeline - put in hall

             - add east coast and European events.

  - add our family timeline

Native tribes

            - locations

                        - color on map

             - lifestyle

             - field trip

Starting in lesson 2 we will be working on the indigenous people of California.  Here is a great sample curriculum that includes info on the tribal regions.  http://www.splashpublications.com/files/californiahistory.pdf Going from this I made a map using a basic blank map of California and then drew in the areas based off of the map in this book.  My son will then color in each region as we study it.  We will pick one tribe from each region to really learn about.  I will post websites as I find them as well as books that we read from the library. 

Additionally, my son really got into the projects of the topographical map and time line.  Apparently he likes crafts more than I thought!  So, at his request we are also making sample dwellings for each region.  This is completely optional!  We are only doing this because he wants to!  Oh, and as I do it I am having flash backs of building my daughter’s mission.  Ahhh!!!!  Be warned that depending on the skill level of your child, this may become more YOUR project than theirs.  My son is enjoying it and learning, so we will persevere through. 

If you are crazy like me and want to do the buildings here is how we went about it:

1 large piece of foam core

1 box craft sticks

1 box craft tooth picks

Tacky Glue

Salt Clay – see Unit 1:1

There are 6 basic regions for the native tribes so I divided the foam core up into 6 squares.  I then took the salt clay and rolled out a square 7”x7” and put that in my first square.  Put the rest of the clay away for next time.   Now I used craft sticks to make the dwelling.  We glued them onto a support beam then when the wall was dry we put a bead of glue on the clay and pushed the wall into the “dirt”.  Cut and build getting as detailed as you wish.  You will see from my pictures that we just did it and didn’t worry too much about perfection.  Good luck!

Lesson 6 – Composition and Power Point

            Today we start another year long project that I am really excited about.  We are starting a Power Point.  We will be adding to this at the end of each unit so that by the end of the year, my son will have made a power point summarizing California’s history!  Since my son likes working on the computer, this will be much easier than a long essay.  At the end of each unit he will write 1-2 paragraphs summarizing what he has learned followed by pictures that he took on our field trip.  The pictures will all need descriptive captions.  Ready?  Here we go!         

Today is all about lessons learned.  My son will write 1 paragraph about the bioregions of California and one about the one we just visited.  This will be uploaded to the power point.  Then he can upload his favorite pictures from our field trip and label those.  This may take a couple of days to complete -that's ok.  Hooray!  Unit one complete!

 Click here to see my son's power point as an example.