Grade 2 - Early Americans
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Step Back in Time: Discover the Lives of Early Americans! ⏳🚂🏕️
How did people live before electricity, cars, or even grocery stores? Who were the first Americans, and what was life like for the Native American tribes, settlers, and pioneers who shaped our country? Now, 2nd-grade students can explore Early American history in a way that’s engaging, exciting, and easy to understand!
📽️ “Early Americans” is an interactive and visually rich educational video that brings history to life. Through storytelling, real-world connections, and vivid visuals, students will take a journey from Native American villages to the Pioneer trails, exploring how people lived, worked, and built the foundations of America.
💡 What Your Students Will Learn:
✅ The daily lives of Native American tribes and their unique homes, food, and traditions
✅ How settlers and Pilgrims built new communities and celebrated the first Thanksgiving
✅ The fight for freedom and independence from England and the role of George Washington
✅ How Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War helped bring freedom to all Americans
✅ The westward expansion, where pioneers traveled in wagons to start new lives
✅ What daily life was like—before electricity, running water, and modern transportation
🌟 Why Teachers Love This Video:
🕒 Zero-Prep, Standards-Aligned Content – Ready to go, no extra work needed!
🎥 Visually Engaging & Age-Appropriate – Helps students connect with history in a fun way.
🎯 Brings Social Studies to Life – Students don’t just hear about history—they experience it!
📚 Encourages Critical Thinking – Perfect for classroom discussions and learning activities.
💡 Make History Fun, Engaging, and Memorable!
Transport your students back in time and help them experience history firsthand—without any extra prep work. Subscribe today and bring Early American history to life in your classroom! 🚀
Video length: 7:45 minutes.
Learning Resources with this Video*
Quizzes – PDF & Online
Who Were the Early Americans? – Worksheet
I Am Thankful
Draw a Scene
Universal Resources
National Standards
*Links are active on Full Video page.
Classroom Ideas
Early Americans
Art and Social Studies
Use various materials to create a small-scale home for a group of Native Americans, e.g. a wigwam. Can be done in groups.
Cloze Practice
A cloze piece has full sentences used in the virtual field trip with blanks where students can write in the information that is missing. This task requires close listening to the trip in order to complete it.
Coral reefs are the _______ type of ecosystem in the world. They’ve been around for over _____ million years.
Answers: oldest; 240
Alternatively, you could have students create 5-10 cloze statements and they could share those with the class.
A third alternative is to distribute the cloze worksheets before watching the video. Students can fill them in as they watch.
Explore Vocabulary
Identify key vocabulary terms while previewing each video. Prompt students to find the meaning of each word as they watch the video. Example: What do the words bartering and artifact mean? Think about the meaning of this word as you watch this video.
Visual Learning
Offer videos to struggling learners as another form of accessing information and creating knowledge.
Art
Draw a scene from the video you just watched.
Classroom Ideas for ALL Videos
Here are dozens and dozens of ideas that you can use in your classroom along with our videos!
Topics Covered In This Video
Native Americans were the first people to live in America
They belonged to different tribes and lived in different types of housing
Native American hunting, fishing, & clothing
After some time the Pilgrims and other settlers arrived
Life was not easy for these settlers
Eventually 13 colonies were built
Conflict with England resulted in the Declaration of Independence
This led to the Revolutionary War and the new country of the U.S.A.
Some time later a great president, Abraham Lincoln, freed the slaves
Civil War led to greater choices for everyone
Some chose to move west to get away from the crowded cities
Pioneers had a hard life and getting around wasn’t easy
Things are much easier now with emails and easy transportation
Videos in this Series
Grade 2 - Our Government At Work
Grade 2 - Land and Water Around Us
Grade 2 - Work and Money
Grade 2 - Living Together
Related Videos
Grade 1 - Life Long Ago
Grade 3 - The First Americans
