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Website
Digital History

Digital History: Life on the Trail

For Students 9th - 10th
Read what life was like for the pioneers traveling west in wagon trains, especially along the Oregon Trail.
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Website
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Frontier Education and the One Room Schoolhouse

For Students 9th - 10th
See how much public education has changed from the one-room schoolhouse days of the frontier. From a companion essay to the PBS series, Frontier House.
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Website
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Creating a Home on the Frontier

For Students 9th - 10th
Making a house a home was a struggle on the plains. This companion essay to the PBS series, Frontier House, describes the problems with getting water, outhouses, and furnishing the sod house.
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Website
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Uncle Sam Is Rich Enough to Give Us All a Farm

For Students 9th - 10th
In this companion essay to the PBS series, Frontier House, you can see how the Homestead Act opened up the frontier to ordinary citizens, eager for a chance to own their own property.
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Interactive
PBS

Wnet: Thirteen: Texas Ranch House

For Students 3rd - 8th
What was it like to be a cowboy in 1867? Visit the Cooke Ranch and explore a cowboy's working and dwelling quarters. Play the interactive games to learn about the many aspects of daily life in the American West. (Click "Interactive...
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Graphic
Curated OER

York Region District School Board: Pioneer Life in Upper Canada: Settlement

For Students Pre-K - 1st
In 1800 most of the 35,000 pioneers in Upper Canada lived on farms. This map shows where the earliest pioneers settled.
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Graphic
Curated OER

York Region District School Bd: Pioneer Life in Upper Canada: Doctors Office

For Students Pre-K - 1st
In pioneer days the doctor's office would be in a special room at his house. Learn about the remedies pioneers would use if they did not have a village doctor. Then try the herbal remedy matching exercise.
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Graphic
Curated OER

York Region District School Board: Pioneer Life in Upper Canada: Water

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Pioneers usually settled near rivers or lakes as the waterways were their highways. Find out about their methods of travel.
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Graphic
Curated OER

York Region District School Board: Pioneer Life in Upper Canada: Water

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Pioneers usually settled near rivers or lakes as the waterways were their highways. Find out about their methods of travel.
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Graphic
Curated OER

York Region District School Board: Pioneer Life in Upper Canada: Saw Mill

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Do you know what a "buck" is? Learn about the saw mill in pioneer times and this important tool.
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Website
Scholastic

Scholastic: Bring Hispanic Heritage Month to Life: A Collection of Resources

For Students Pre-K - 1st
Celebrate diversity with this collection of ideas to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, including lesson plans, authors, pioneers, and more.
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Activity
US National Archives

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library: Pioneering Journeys of the Ingalls Family

For Students 4th - 6th
Growing up in the late 1800's was not an easy life, especially when your family was always on the move searching for a farm. Laura Ingalls Wilder led a challenging childhood of moving often and falling on hard times. Trace her journeys...
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Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: Our Story: Life in a Sod House

For Students 3rd - 8th
Imagine moving into a house made out of sod that you and your family had to build in the middle of a prairie! Find great information and activities that will help you understand how it felt to live on the prairie.
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Website
Other

Agriculture in the Classroom Sask: Early Days: Homesteaders

For Students 2nd - 8th
A broad view of life as a pioneer or homesteader in the prairie lands of the United States or Canada in the 19th century. Learn about the work and play of pioneer families, and how their towns developed.
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Article
Christian Science Monitor

Christian Science Monitor: What Kids Did on the Western Frontier

For Students 9th - 10th
An interesting article addressed to students discusses the life of children on the western frontier, about the time of the "Little House" stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
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eBook
Open Library of the Internet Archive

Open Library: The Story of the Life of Abraham Lincoln

For Students 9th - 10th
This ebook version of William Makepeace Thayer's The Pioneer Boy, And How He Became President: The Story Of The Life Of Abraham Lincoln has been made available in multiple formats by the Open Library. Editions of the full novel,...
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eBook
Blackdog Media

Classic Reader: "Two Pioneers" by Elia W. Peattie

For Students 9th - 10th
Elia W. Peattie wrote about life in the West. "Two Pioneers" recounts the tale of a priest who makes friends with a "lady of the night". Read the full text on this site.
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Website
Ducksters

Ducksters: History: Daily Life on the Frontier for Kids

For Students 1st - 9th
Kids learn about the daily life on the frontier of the Old West. This site explores how pioneers and settlers lived.
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Lesson Plan
Intel Corporation

Intel: Music of the Western Expansion

For Teachers 3rd - 5th
What was life like for a western pioneer? Young scholars take a journey through westward expansion using music to understand the experience of the pioneers. As they listen to lyrics and analyze the different types of music that was being...
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Unit Plan
Other

Connie Brummel Crook: 'The Hungry Year' Teaching Guide [Pdf]

For Teachers 3rd - 8th
"The Hungry Year", an historical novel by Connie Brummel Crook, begins in 1787 and is set in what is now Ontario. It follows the life of a Loyalist pioneer family that has fled into Canada. This teacher's guide has a book summary,...
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Unit Plan
Other

Connie Brummel Crook: 'The Perilous Year' Teaching Guide [Pdf]

For Teachers 9th - 10th
"The Perilous Year", an historical novel by Connie Brummel Crook, begins in 1793 and is set in what is now Ontario. It follows the life of two brothers into adulthood. This teacher's guide has a book summary, chapter discussion guides...
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Lesson Plan
Varsity Tutors

Varsity Tutors: Web English Teacher: Willa Cather Lesson Plans

For Teachers 9th - 10th
Check out this informative resource to learn more about this famous author. This site features links to several other sites dedicated to Willa Cather's life and work.
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Handout
Curated OER

Bureau of Land Management: Basic Facts About the Oregon Trail

For Students 4th - 8th
Learn basic facts about the Oregon Trail and the early pioneers who used it in their move West.
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Lesson Plan
Orca Book Publishers

Orca Book Publishers: Strawberry Moon Teaching Guide [Pdf]

For Teachers 3rd - 6th
Strawberry Moon, a novel by Becky Citra, continues to follow the life of Ellie, a young girl living in Upper Canada in the 1830s. In this story, her strict grandmother has come to take her back to England and Ellie doesn't want to go....

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