In October and November, the 4th grade students have explored various primary sources of the West in their classrooms and during their Aerie Rotations. Children love using artifacts to learn about a different time period. It allows them to approach history like a puzzle. Recently, I have changed my approach to how I discuss primary sources with students. When kids get more time to look at items and have guiding questions to focus their thinking and exploration, they end up with a deeper understanding about the time period and develop their own higher-level questions.
In Library Classes
In all three homerooms, we began by defining the term primary sources, coming up with a list of examples, and predicting what kinds of information they might be able learn from different documents, images, and artifacts. Then, the students looked at a map from 1803, just before the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They had to answer the following questions: What do you notice on the map? What surprises you about the map?
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| 1803 map, includes Merriweather Lewis' annotations in brown ink. https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4126s.ct000071/ |
Here are a few of their observations:
- The middle of the map is empty
- The top of the map is detailed
- Very few mountains
- It doesn't seem accurate.
At the close of class I asked them how they would feel if they had to use this map to get across the US. Over all, they felt like it wouldn't help them much--not like maps today. Next, I asked them if the map tells us everything Lewis and Clark knew before they left on the expedition. The 4th graders agreed that it did not. When I asked what we know about the expedition from the map they concluded that Lewis and Clark had some idea of where they were headed but they had a lot to learn.
Aerie Rotation
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| 1807 Map https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4125.ct000762/ |
In their Aerie Rotation, the students compared this 1807 map by Robert Frazer, based on the findings of Lewis and Clark, to the 1803 map. They had to answer these questions when looking at the map in small groups: What is different about this map? How does this map help us understand what Lewis and Clark learned on the expedition?
Here are some of their responses:
- Lots of rivers with creeks and lakes
- Detail
- Mountain ranges
- Shows where all the different American Indian Nations lived
- Compass Rose
- Latitude and Longitude marked on map.
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| Looking at the detail of 1807 post-expedition map, during Aerie |
After they shared what they noticed on the map, they discussed what they thought Lewis and Clark learned . They concluded that the explorers must have taken careful measurements because of the detail and the inclusion of map features like latitude and longitude and a compass rose. The 4th graders also noticed how many Native American villages Lewis and Clark noted and made a connection to the fact that President Jefferson had asked them to learn about the various American Indian Nations.
Oregon Trail Journal Entries and Playskool campsite
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| Leaving home |
Ms. O'Hara and I extended the examination of primary sources by collaborating to help her students create historically accurate pioneer journal entries. We had her fourth graders look at the real journal of Sallie Hester, a 14 year old girl, who set out, with her family, on the Oregon-California Trail on March 20, 1849. First, we predicted how someone might feel leaving to go on such a trip and then as a class we jotted down the details of how she felt leaving her friends and family.
During our next class we looked at another entry in Sallie's journal from May 21, 1849. In it, she describes what it was like to camp on the trail at night. She lists how they set up the wagons at night and what food they brought with them, how they prepared it and what other food they hunted along the way. Again, as a class we jotted these ideas down for them to use when they created their own journal entries.
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| Example of completed journal entry describing leaving home. |
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| http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsc.04819/ |
Then, the children looked at this illustration by Daniel Jenks in small groups. The caption reads, " Drawing shows several tents and covered wagons encamped on the banks of the Humboldt River in western Nevada. Both men and women prepare food over open fires, haul water, and prepare bedding. In the foreground, inside a covered wagon, a couple courts. Jenks and his party reached here on Friday, July 22, 1859."
While the students created their journal entries, Ms. O'Hara hung the lists that they had created of details from Sallie Hester's journal and Daniel Jenks' illustration for them to incorporate into their creative work. You could hear a pin drop as the kids immersed themselves in the lives of their fictional pioneers. The 4th graders displayed their finished work for the Hamilton Fall Fest. Their journal entries were chock full of historically accurate details about life on the trail. They also created scenes, using Play Skool blocks, of events on the trail. When I pointed out how the group depicting camping at night had included men and women hauling water and cooking over a campfire, directly depicted in the Jenks illustration, one girl replied that she hadn't even been thinking about the drawing when she created the scene. If you ask me, that right there is learning at its best!
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| Students recreated what it was like to camp on the trail at night. |
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| Cooking over campfire |
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| Hauling water. |