4th grade Social Studies
12 units matched to the Alabama Course of Study. Kids see this subject as “Our World”.
Focus areas
- Course: Alabama in American History and Government II: Colonies to 1900
- The colonies and the American Revolution
- Statehood and westward expansion
- The Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama
Units
Unit 1
States & Capitals
The capital cities of the 50 states, and major rivers, mountains and lakes of the United States.
Content standard: 4.11; 4.17 · locating the states, their capitals and major rivers and mountains on a US map
Unit 2
Reconstruction
Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877 as a bridge to high school US history: the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, Black officeholders, the violence that opposed them and how gains were later rolled back.
Content standard: 4.15 · the major events of Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and how its gains were rolled back
Unit 3
Colonial Regions & Work
The geography of the New England, Middle and Southern colonies, their founders, and colonial labor (apprenticeship, indentured servitude and slavery), with the triangular trade and the Middle Passage told plainly.
Content standard: 4.1; 4.2; 4.3; 4.4 · the colonial regions and how geography shaped them, colonial labor systems and the slave trade, and contributions of groups in colonial America
Unit 4
The American Revolution
The French and Indian War and the protests that followed, key battles and people of the Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the Spanish capture of Mobile, and the treaties that set the new nation's borders.
Content standard: 4.5; 4.6 · the French and Indian War, the causes and key events of the American Revolution, events in Alabama, and the treaties that set US borders
Unit 5
Building a Government
Why the Articles of Confederation were replaced, Shays' Rebellion and the Constitutional Convention's compromises, the three branches of government, the Bill of Rights and how amendments change the Constitution.
Content standard: 4.7 · the road to the Constitution, the three branches of government, the Bill of Rights and the amendment process
Unit 6
The Federal Road & the Creek War
The Louisiana Purchase and the Corps of Discovery, the Federal Road through Creek land, the War of 1812, and the causes, battles, leaders and results of the Creek War of 1813–1814 for the Muscogee (Creek) people and for Alabama.
Content standard: 4.8; 4.9 · westward expansion, the Federal Road and its effects on Native Americans, the War of 1812 and the Creek War
Unit 7
Alabama Fever & Statehood
'Alabama fever' and statehood in 1819, Alabama's early leaders, why the capital moved from St. Stephens and Huntsville to Cahawba, Tuscaloosa and Montgomery, early schools and colleges, and how Alabamians earned a living before 1860.
Content standard: 4.10; 4.12 · Alabama fever and statehood, early leaders and capitals, and economic life and education in Alabama before 1860
Unit 8
Cotton, Slavery & Removal
How cotton and slavery grew in Alabama, the lives, work and culture of enslaved people and the harm of the domestic slave trade, Indian Removal and the Trail of Tears, and the trails and technology of westward expansion. Told plainly.
Content standard: 4.11; 4.12 · US expansion before the Civil War, life for enslaved people in Alabama, and Indian Removal of the Muscogee Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw
Unit 9
Free States & Slave States
Sorting the states admitted between 1812 and 1860 into free and slave states, and the growing nation's trails and technology.
Content standard: 4.11 · states admitted between 1812 and 1860 as free or slave states, and factors in US expansion before the Civil War
Unit 10
Alabama & the Civil War
How slavery divided the nation, abolitionists, the Clotilda, Alabama's role in forming the Confederacy and the Unionists of north Alabama, key battles in Alabama and the nation, the home front and the end of the war and slavery.
Content standard: 4.13; 4.14 · how slavery led to the Civil War, Alabama's role in the Confederacy, key people and battles, and how the war affected Alabamians
Unit 11
Reconstruction & the Late 1800s
Reconstruction in Alabama (the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, Black officeholders, new schools and Africatown), the Jim Crow laws, sharecropping and voting restrictions that followed, the rise of Birmingham and new industries, and US expansion after the Civil War.
Content standard: 4.15; 4.16; 4.17 · Reconstruction in Alabama, Jim Crow and economic change in the late 1800s, and US expansion after the Civil War
Unit 12
Colonies to 1900 Timeline
Putting events from the colonies to 1900 in order, from Georgia's founding and the Revolution to Alabama statehood, the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Content standard: 4.6; 4.10; 4.14; 4.15 · the order of key events in Alabama and US history from the colonies to 1900
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