Grade 5 · printable course

The American Story Begins: Peoples, Contact, and a New Nation

Grade 5 · 362 pages · 78 lessons · PDF, print at home

This course traces North American history from the diverse civilizations that existed before European contact through the founding of the United States. Students examine indigenous nations on their own terms, the motives and consequences of European exploration, the regional development of colonial society including the lived experience of enslaved people, the causes of the Revolution, the war itself, and the founding documents that structured the new nation. Reading and writing are grounded in primary and secondary sources at grade-appropriate complexity. Hard history is presented honestly, at a fifth grader's depth, without graphic detail.

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Every unit and lesson in this book, in order. The same lessons are taught online at lettersanddevotion.com, so a family can move between paper and screen.

The American Story Begins: Peoples, Contact, and a New Nation

78 lessons · try a lesson online free

Unit 1: Nations Before Contact10 lessons
  1. 1.The five Native culture regions (Eastern Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Northwest Coast, Arctic/Subarctic) and their locations
  2. 2.The four core unit vocabulary terms (nation, resource, adapt, culture region) and their taught picture examples
  3. 3.Specific Native nation names tied to Eastern Woodlands, Plains, and Southwest regions
  4. 4.The relationship between regional climate/resources and housing adaptation
  5. 5.Regional food sources (e.g., Plains bison hunting vs. Southwest irrigation farming) and their geographic basis
  6. 6.The general pattern linking climate/resource clues to culture region classification
  7. 7.Oral tradition and archaeological evidence as sources of history
  8. 8.Governance structures among Native nations (e.g., Haudenosaunee Confederacy council)
  9. 9.The word 'discovery' as applied to land that was already inhabited
  10. 10.The combined region-nation-adaptation relationship for three specific nations
Unit 2: Contact and Consequence8 lessons
  1. 11.The three explorer motives (God, gold, glory) as applied to specific voyages
  2. 12.The routes of the Columbus 1492 voyage and one non-Spanish exploration voyage
  3. 13.The Columbian Exchange of specific crops, animals, and disease across the Atlantic
  4. 14.The relative scale of epidemic disease versus warfare in Native population decline after contact
  5. 15.Two paired accounts (one Native, one European) of a single named contact event
  6. 16.The relationship between a writer's motive and the details chosen in a first-hand or adapted account
  7. 17.The fairness claim about the Columbian Exchange, weighed against crop, disease, and population evidence
  8. 18.A novel pair of contact-event accounts not used in any prior lesson
Unit 3: Colonial Life, Region by Region9 lessons
  1. 19.Geographic features of the three colonial regions
  2. 20.The link between regional geography and regional economy
  3. 21.The distinction between indentured servitude and chattel slavery
  4. 22.The daily and family life of enslaved people under chattel slavery
  5. 23.The triangular trade route and its cargo
  6. 24.The causal role of geography in producing different regional economies
  7. 25.The pattern connecting geography, economy, and labor system
  8. 26.The three-region comparison chart structure
  9. 27.An argument about regional resistance to change, supported by regional evidence
Unit 4: The Road to Revolution10 lessons
  1. 28.Unit 3 colonial economy vocabulary (cash crop, triangular trade, self-government)
  2. 29.The specific taught reason for each named British act, as presented in the Day 3-8 worked examples
  3. 30.British motive for post-war taxation policy (Sugar Act, Stamp Act) tied to war debt and colonial trade
  4. 31.Types of colonial response to British acts
  5. 32.Sequence and escalation pattern of events between 1765 and 1774
  6. 33.Loyalist reasoning as revealed in a primary-source letter or broadside
  7. 34.Point-of-view differences between Patriot and Loyalist accounts of the same event
  8. 35.Single-event-cause claim about the Boston Tea Party, tested against the full grievance timeline
  9. 36.Relative importance of causes of the Revolution, applied to unfamiliar colony-specific grievance evidence
  10. 37.Claim-based argument paragraph ranking causes of the Revolution
Unit 5: Fighting for Independence10 lessons
  1. 38.The Unit 4 list of colonial grievances (taxation without representation, quartering, trade restriction, etc.)
  2. 39.The connection between a named Unit 4 grievance word and a specific real event that illustrates it
  3. 40.The dual function of the Declaration of Independence as both grievance list and formal announcement of separation
  4. 41.The geographic setting of the Saratoga and Yorktown campaigns
  5. 42.The geographic setting of Revolutionary War battles beyond the two directly modeled
  6. 43.The effect of the 1778 French alliance on military and supply resources
  7. 44.The differing risks and choices facing women, Black Americans, and Native nations during the Revolutionary War
  8. 45.The cause-and-effect relationship between one turning point (Saratoga or Yorktown) and the war's outcome
  9. 46.The range of plausible wartime allegiance choices given a person's circumstances
  10. 47.Grievance language within the Declaration of Independence excerpt
Unit 6: A Nation Tries to Govern Itself11 lessons
  1. 48.The Articles of Confederation's distribution of power between states and central government
  2. 49.The causal link between fear of tyranny and the design choice of a weak central government
  3. 50.The three named structural weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation
  4. 51.The consequence chain from no taxing power to unpaid debts
  5. 52.Shays' Rebellion as a case of the Articles' weaknesses producing a farmer uprising
  6. 53.Differing points of view in two texts describing Shays' Rebellion
  7. 54.The states' 1786-87 decision to convene a fix-it meeting rather than start over
  8. 55.Compromise as a concept applied to a scenario with two competing interests
  9. 56.Compromise as a solution strategy applied to a state-boundary dispute, reached by comparing its structure to prior classroom scenarios
  10. 57.Evidence about the Articles of Confederation sorted into strengths and weaknesses categories
  11. 58.A written recommendation memo proposing changes to the Articles of Confederation
Unit 7: Framing a New Government12 lessons
  1. 59.The link between a named Articles-of-Confederation weakness and its constitutional fix (e.g., no power to tax fixed by Congress's taxing power)
  2. 60.The Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, and the Great Compromise's two-house solution
  3. 61.The basic function of each of the three branches of government, as directly named in class
  4. 62.Division of powers between state and federal government under federalism
  5. 63.The three branches of government and one checks-and-balances example per branch
  6. 64.The Anti-Federalist objection that the original Constitution lacked explicit protection of individual rights
  7. 65.The specific protection named in each of three taught Bill of Rights amendments
  8. 66.The gap between the Declaration's claim of equal rights and the groups excluded from full citizenship under the 1787 Constitution (enslaved people, women, Native nations, most men without property)
  9. 67.The Three-Fifths Compromise as a deal over congressional representation that counted enslaved people partially for political power while denying them rights
  10. 68.Structural features of governing documents (branch functions, federalism) applied to an unfamiliar text
  11. 69.The Preamble's stated purposes and one specific Bill of Rights amendment's protection
  12. 70.The fit between the Declaration of Independence's promise of equality and the Constitution's actual treatment of excluded groups
Unit 8: The American Story: Looking Back, Looking Forward8 lessons
  1. 71.The year-long chronological sequence of Native nations, contact, and colonial life
  2. 72.The causal chain from colonial grievance to revolution to constitutional compromise
  3. 73.The recurring theme of ideals versus reality for different groups across the year
  4. 74.Differing outcomes of contact for Native nations in different regions
  5. 75.The link between a named colonial grievance and a specific constitutional compromise
  6. 76.A researched argument answering a course essential question using cross-unit evidence
  7. 77.Underrepresented perspectives in the course's primary sources
  8. 78.The student's own three-unit evidence-based argument

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