University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas: Exploration and Settlement Before 1675
A great map showing the explorations of Spanish, French, and English explorers in North America between 1530 and 1675. A detailed key identifies each explorer and route. From the Perry-Castaneda Collection
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: French and Dutch Exploration in the New World
Outline text explaining how the French, Dutch, and English explorers began to make inroads into the Americans in the late 1500s and early 1600s.
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: Europe's North South Conflicts Reach the Americas
An essay detailing early English and French exploration and settlement in the New World to challenge Spanish control.
British Library
British Library: The Search for the Northwest Passage
Detailed third grade lessons help students understand what skills and knowledge were required in order to become an explorer. Includes specific lessons on John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Henry Hudson.
Walled Lake Consolidated Schools
Loon Lake Elementary School: John Cabot
A biography of John Cabot (1450-1499), an explorer who made the first English voyage to North America. His voyage in 1497 gave England a claim to the mainland of North America and led to the founding of the English colonies in America....
Independence Hall Association
U.s. History: New France
This site has a good description of the differences between the French settlements in New France and the British colonies in America. Read about the rights of the French colonists as opposed to those of the English colonists.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Contact: First Impressions
English, Spanish, and Portuguese maps and letters of about the voyages of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Portuguese explorer, Gaspar Corte Real, which describe impressions of the lands explored.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Jamestown, Quebec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings
Explore the origins of Canada and the United States as Jamestown, Quebec, and Santa Fe celebrate their 400th anniversary.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: Extra, Extra!! Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Newscast
This lesson will be an interdisciplinary lesson that involves both English Language Arts and Social Studies (History). The lesson will be primarily technology-based and also project-based that will have the students performing historical...