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6th grade · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 14

Colonial Trade & Work

Resources, trade and choices

What your child practices

Resources, specialization and trade in the colonies, mercantilism, and the Atlantic slave trade and its impact on African peoples, told plainly and age-appropriately.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 6.4; 6.6 · work and trade in the colonies, and the triangular trade

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. A merchant buys and sells goods. Capital goods, like ships, help make or move goods.
  2. Productivity means making more in the same time. Interest is extra money paid for borrowing.
  3. The slave trade took millions of Africans from their homes and tore families apart.

Example: What is interest on a loan? You borrow money and pay it back. You pay a bit extra for borrowing. Answer: extra money paid for borrowing

Colonial Trade & Work in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 3 of 14 in 6th grade Social Studies, after The Thirteen Colonies and before Road to Revolution.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    What is a need?

    • A second hat
    • Something people must have to live, like food or shelter
    • A fancy toy
    • A game

  2. Question 2

    Why did enslaved people resist slavery, for example by escaping or slowing work?

    • They wanted to go to England
    • They were bored
    • They were paid too little
    • They wanted freedom and were forced to work against their will

  3. Question 3

    Why did the economies of the three colonial regions differ?

    • They used different calendars
    • Their climates, soil and resources were different
    • Only one region had people
    • They had different kings

  4. Question 4

    In the triangular trade, ships carried goods from Europe to Africa, enslaved people from Africa to the Americas, and…

    • Crops like sugar and tobacco back to Europe
    • Gold to China
    • Nothing at all
    • Wheat to the Arctic

  5. Question 5

    What is barter?

    • Paying taxes
    • Trading goods directly without money
    • Saving coins in a bank
    • Borrowing money

  6. Question 6

    How did trade link the colonies to other parts of the world?

    • Trade was banned
    • They traded only with China
    • They traded only with each other
    • Ships carried goods to and from Europe, Africa and the Caribbean

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