This Colonial America activity for elementary and middle school students is perfect for helping your students learn interesting facts about the geography and history of colonial America. This activity can be assigned as individual or group work and is a perfect extension activity, early finisher project, or supplement to a unit on geography, map skills, or American history.
Students will use various research sources to perform a "scavenger hunt" of interesting facts about colonial geography. As they find the answers, they will create a slide presentation (digital) or mini-book (printable) documenting their answers. The questions are moderately challenging and require different levels of investigation to find the correct answers. This activity is suitable for grades 3 to 8; tips on differentiation can be found in the teaching instructions.
What's Included:
- Teaching instructions with notes on research and differentiation for different grade levels;
- A student worksheet featuring 11 scavenger hunt questions and space to record research notes;
- A PowerPoint slide template that can be converted to Google Slides, if necessary, plus a printable version of the template for a handout option, if desired;
- A complete answer key for all 11 questions with additional notes.
Sample Scavenger Hunt Questions:
- Where in the colonial world can you find the words “CROATOAN” mysteriously carved on a tree?
- Where in the colonial world did the Mayflower land?
- Where in the colonial world was the first (successful) colony established?
