Elementary Spotlight: Colonial America Pocket Books

By: Lisa Henriquez

Student Colonial American Pocket Books

Project-based Learning(PBL) is a great way to engage students in using all of their skills to demonstrate what have they learned. Engaging and fun this is a way to get all students to be active learners. Here is a recent project in an elementary class.

My students completed the project entitled Colonial Times to demonstrate their learning for this unit of study. Students were challenged to create a pocket book about the Colonial Era and we could not be more pleased with the results.

Colonial American Pocket Books Requirements



Each book will have eight pockets:

·         Introduction

·         First Settlements

·         Native Americans

·         Homes and Villages

·         Daily Life

·         School

·         Work

·         Memorable People

Project Checklist

 

Each pocket will be labeled on the front with the topic, contain an informational page about the topic, a primary source related to the topic, and various activities for the topic, and various activities for the topic. Each pocket will have a list of activities to complete for the pocket as well that students could choose from.

 

Sample Student Pockets

 
 

Sample Activity

This was a great project it was fun and engaging for students and me. The choice board gave students real ownership of the project.  Another high point of this project was the introduction of primary source reading and interpretation to 4^th graders. The only real challenge was making sure that there was sufficient access to all the documents at home and school for students.