History Study: Westward Expansion

We spent the last six weeks studying a period of US history characterized by westward expansion. There are some parts of this history that are really fun to learn about, such as pioneer life. There are other parts that are less fun, such as countless Native Americans losing their homes. We tried to cover both aspects in an age appropriate manner. Here are some of the books we read:

The Journey of York: The Unsung Hero of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, by Hasan Davis
A Picture Book of Sacagawea, by David A. Adler
Cooking on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, by Mary Gunderson
Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The House on Plum Creek, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Sequoyah: Man of Many Words, by Jeri Cipriano
Going West, by Jan Van Leeuwen
Apples to Oregon, Deborah Hopkinson
If You Were a Kid on the Oregon Trail, by Josh Gregory
Gold Rush: The Untold Story of the First Nations Woman Who Started the Klondike Gold Rush, by Flora Delargy
If You Were a Kid During the California Gold Rush, by Josh Gregory
Locomotive, by Brian Floca
Coolies, by Yin

We started by reading briefly about the Louisiana Purchase, which, although a bit boring to learn about, was a catalyst for many major historical events afterwards. This was followed up shortly after by the Lewis and Clark expedition. We read about some key contributors to the expedition, such as Sacagawea, and York, who was enslaved by William Clark and required to go on the expedition. We also explored the route the expedition followed, and the map they created. We also researched the types of food they made.

Here are Pumpkin's thoughts about Sacagawea:

We read about Sequoyah and Tecumseh, two Native American leaders who sought to unite multiple nations to defend themselves from settlement during this time period. We particularly enjoyed exploring the Cherokee alphabet, which was developed by Sequoyah in an attempt to unify people through literacy. 

We touched a little bit on forced removal methods, such as the Trail of Tears. The girls were quick to point out the inconsistencies of forcing Native Americans to move west, and then for white settlers to move west and demand that land. 

This led us to the Oregon Trail, which of course, can be fun to learn about. We measured out the size of a typical covered wagon and imagined packing up all of our belongings into it. As luck would have it, we visited a museum during this time with our co-op, and saw a real covered wagon there. We watched quite a few videos delving into the Oregon Trail, but found this one to be particularly eye-opening. 

Another aspect of westward expansion that we studied was the California Gold Rush. There are a lot of interesting videos on the internet that gave us a "real life" perspective on what it was like to hunt for gold.  We finished up this unit study with the Transcontinental Railroad. We spent a little extra time focusing on the role of Chinese immigrants in building the railroad, which was a perspective that I had not been taught much about when I was in school. 

Throughout this unit study, we regularly added important dates to our Book of Centuries, and it was really neat to compare dates to things we had already learned about. Did you know that the California Gold Rush happened the same year that Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery? I certainly didn't. We also did a lot of mapwork during this unit study. It turns out that history and geography go hand in hand!

Additionally, we read through some of the Little House books. It really is so fun to get a peek into the "old days" but they also inspired some really good conversations with the girls, since we had also studied the some Native American perspectives on westward expansion.