Grade 5 Lesson at a Glance: Chapter 8, Lesson 1

Houghton Mifflin Social Studies
America Will Be

Lesson at a Glance
Chapter 8, Lesson 1: The Puritans Come to America (pp. 180-185)

The Big Idea
Framework Concept: Culture The Puritans' beliefs influenced how they built their communities.

Start by discussing the Puritans' religious reasons for coming to New England and living together in towns. Write these two statements on the chalkboard and ask students to discuss which statement they agree with more, and tell why:

Nature must be tamed.
Nature is fine just the way it is.

Tell them that the Puritans believed in the first statement and the Algonquin Indians believed in the second. Talk about how these conflicting beliefs might have stirred up conflict between the two groups of people living near one another.

Lesson Outline
Use the Lesson Outline to preview the content of the lesson. You may wish to print it for your students as a guide during reading.

Check for Understanding

Have students pick one of the Puritans' beliefs -- such as their duty to "labor and suffer together" or that they should lead model lives -- and write a paragraph about how the belief may have affected daily life.
Have students use what they learned from the lesson to role-play a scene between the Puritans and the Algonquins. You might set it up by saying "An early storm has blown down the fence around the community's livestock and some of the animals have escaped into the forest."

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