Lesson Plan
PBS

Pbs: About All You Can Eat: A Feast at Plimouth Plantation

For Teachers 9th - 10th
A lesson in the culinary delicacies of the Plymouth Plantation in 1627. For this integrated lesson, students examine the history of foods eaten during this colonial era and prepare an actual meal based on what they have learned. This...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Failed Colonies, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Three European accounts of the disappointments, challenges, and outright failures to establish early successful colonial outposts in North America.
Website
Internet History Sourcebooks Project

Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: Coffee Fazenda of Brazil 1911

For Students 9th - 10th
The Modern History Sourcebook provides this great look at what life would be like on a coffee plantation during the early 20th century. It describes the houses, life on the plantation, colonists, and harvests.
Handout
Texas A&M University

Sons of De Witt Colony Texas: Gutierrez De Lara: In Nuevo Santander

For Students 9th - 10th
Jose Gutierrez de Lara, the first governor of Mexican Texas, was determined to free Mexico from Spain. Read about the early Texas settlement of Nuevo Santander, and how it was settled by Spanish American colonists.
Article
Schools of California Online Resources for Education

Revolution to Reconstruction:court Architecture and the Development of Democracy

For Students 1st - 9th
Article on the ways in which Colonial court architecture contributed to and fostered the notion of community and democracy.
Interactive
Other

Mission Us: Pennywhistle Hero

For Students 3rd - 8th
Interactive website teaches students about U.S. history in this game using instruments and songs of the colonial era. Levels of difficulty vary.
Handout
Other

Access Genealogy: Pequot Indian History

For Students 9th - 10th
A description of the history of the Pequot Indians and their relations with their neighboring tribes and the early English colonists in New England.
Handout
Countries and Their Cultures

Countries and Their Cultures: Chagga Kinship

For Students 9th - 10th
In the nineteenth century the Kichagga-speaking people on Mount Kilimanjaro were divided into many small, autonomous chiefdoms. Early accounts frequently identify the inhabitants of each chiefdom as a separate "tribe." Although the...
Website
Other

Vietnamese Culture: Vietnamese History

For Students 9th - 10th
Click on "Vietnam's History in Brief" to get a timeline of important events in the country's history. For more depth, click on the individual topics to learn about everything from Vietnam's early history through to the Vietnam War.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: First Arrivals, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Students 9th - 10th
Numerous visual images of artifacts from English settlements at Jamestown and at Plymouth, and from Spanish settlement in Hispaniola, and three original accounts of each of those early settlements that describe the possibilities and the...
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Hardships, American Beginnings: 1492 1690

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Three English, a French, and a Spanish primary account of the staggering losses, misery, and deprivation that characterized early European settlement as well as the resilience needed to overcome those challenges.
Website
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Harcourt: Biographies: Anne Hutchinson (Spanish)

For Students 9th - 10th
A review of the events in the life of Anne Hutchinson, a brave, early American settler. Learn how Anne Hutchinson felt about religion and the way people should worship God. (In Spanish)
Website
University of Oxford (UK)

Pitt Rivers Museum: Robert Hottot's Expedition to Central Africa, 1908 09

For Students 9th - 10th
An online exhibition which documents a scientific expedition up the Congo river in the early 1900s. You can view the complete photos, documents, and equipment by clicking on the left side navigation bar.
Website
Other

Bethlehem Digital History Project

For Students 9th - 10th
Provides online access to digitized primary source materials, transcriptions, translations and contextual information relating to the early history of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1741 - 1844.
Lesson Plan
Library of Virginia

Virginia Memory: Nova Britannia

For Teachers 9th - 10th
In this lesson, students learn about how early promoters advertised the Virginia colony.
Activity
Read Works

Read Works: What Did People Wear?

For Teachers K
[Free Registration/Login Required] A literary text about the clothes worn by early Americans. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Handout
Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Rembrandt Peale

For Students 9th - 10th
From the Luce Foundation Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, this is a portrait photograph and biography of Rembrandt Peale, the early American portrait painter and most of famous of the Peale brothers family of artists.
Primary
Lumen Learning

Lumen: American and Puritan Literature: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

For Students 9th - 10th
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is a sermon written by British Colonial Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards, preached to his own congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts to an unknown effect, and again on July 8, 1741, in...
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Britain in the New World: The House of Burgesses

For Students 5th - 8th
The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first elected legislature in the New World. Find out why the governmental conditions in England led to this representative government and how it was so different from the governing of colonies in...
Handout
Varsity Tutors

Varsity Tutors: Archiving Early America: Abigail Smith Adams

For Students 4th - 8th
This resource provides a brief biography of Abigail Adams (1744-1818 CE).
Primary
Varsity Tutors

Varsity Tutors: Archiving Early America: Letters From a Pennsylvania Farmer

For Students 9th - 10th
A voice of dissent prior to the American Revolution, John Dickenson, a Philadelphia lawyer, was active in protesting British policies. His writings, entitled Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer, were published in newspapers in 1767 and 1768.
Article
Other

Uwo: Early Writing in Canada Susannah Moodie

For Students 9th - 10th
These are excerpts from Susannah Moodie's book 'Roughing it in the Bush'.
Website
Varsity Tutors

Varsity Tutors: Archiving Early America: Boston Massacre

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource provides a short account of the Boston Massacre. Includes the famous engraving done by Paul Revere. Be sure to click on the hyperlinks to access the primary sources about the event.
Handout
Other

Early 16th European History

For Students 9th - 10th
This site breaks down the history of Europe by year between 1525-1558. It discusses the political maneuverings of the period, the social conditions, and the conflicts that arose with religious and political disputes.