The Great Depression was a time of struggle and sacrifice, dust and devastation. This unit helps students understand this economically depressed time in American history. It draws connections between young students’ lives and the highs and lows of life between the years 1925 and 1940.
The trade books for the Primary section of this unit are Ticket to the Twenties: A Time Traveler’s Guide; Vanished! The Mysterious Disappearance of Amelia Earhart; Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression; and Angels in the Dust. The trade books for the Upper Elementary portion of the unit are A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt; Out of the Dust; The Great Depression; and Sky Pioneer: A Photobiography of Amelia Earhart. The unit does not include the actual children's literature books.
Classroom activities include baking chocolate chip cookies, analyzing Dorothea Lange photographs and Shirley Temple films, studying the stock market, and examining maps of the Dust Bowl and of Amelia Earhart’s round-the-world flight attempt. Students also research family tales, compare prices of the 1930s to prices of today, and write poems, stories, and journal entries. Although activities are organized into primary and upper elementary sections, many assignments can be adapted to suit either age group.
World War I: 1914-1925,The New Nation: 1770–1840,Colonial America: 1600-1776,Westward Expansion: 1800-1875,Civil War and Reconstruction: 1860-1877,New World Exploration: Beginning-1600,The Age of Imperialism: 1895-1930,The Vietnam Era: 1955-1975,Using Literature to Teach U. S. History,The American Revolution: 1763-1785,The Great Depression: 1925-1940,Postwar America: 1945-1970,World War II: 1935-1945
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