Grade 3 - How The Country Was Settled
Preview video by clicking the “play” arrow
Video Storyline: Explorers like Daniel Boone helped many of the early pioneers move Westward. President Jefferson arranged for the Louisiana Purchase which doubled the size of the new country. Lewis and Clark mapped the new areas, and with the help of Sacagawea, established the Oregon Trail. Eventually the transcontinental railroad made migrating westward easier. Other inventions made life easier and created many jobs for the new immigrants and people who moved from the South with the Great Migration.
Video Length: 12:03 minutes
Learning Resources with this Video*
Quizzes – PDF & Online
Frontier Match-up Worksheet
The Louisiana Purchase
Draw A Scene – Westward Expansion of the U.S.
Journaling Like Lewis and Clark
Obstacles On The Oregon Trail
The Marks They Made
Universal Resources
National Standards
*Links are active on Full Video page.
Classroom Ideas
How The Country Was Settled
Landforms and Bodies of Water
Identify the landforms and bodies of water across the country that would have made it difficult for pioneers to travel west.
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 consumer, budget, and expense mean? Think about the meaning of these words as you watch this video.
Art and Social Studies
Draw a scene from the video.
Visual Learning
Offer videos to struggling learners as another way of creating knowledge and accessing information.
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
The 13 colonies became crowded and pioneers decided to move west to explore new frontiers
Daniel Boone helped the pioneers get around
President Jefferson bought land from the country of France in the “Louisiana Purchase” to increase the size of the country
He also hired Lewis and Clark to travel through, and map out, the new territory
They established the Oregon Trail, with Sacagawea’s help
The railroad made a huge difference in the dangerous journey westward
Big groups of people were migrating and also immigrating during this time
Technology helped to create jobs for everyone, often in factories