5th grade Social Studies
8 units matched to the Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards.
Focus areas
- Theme: Early American Studies
- The colonies, slavery and resistance
- The American Revolution
- The Constitution and the Bill of Rights
Units
Unit 1
The Thirteen Colonies
Why the colonies were founded, how land and climate shaped the three regions, the people who founded them, the religious life of the colonies and the First Great Awakening, and early self-government such as the Mayflower Compact and the House of Burgesses.
Benchmark: 5.4.21.1; 5.3.14.1 · the thirteen colonies and their regions
Unit 2
Colonial Trade & Work
Resources, specialization and trade in the colonies, mercantilism, and the Atlantic slave trade and its impact on African peoples, told plainly and age-appropriately.
Benchmark: 5.4.21.2; 5.2.10.1 · work and trade in the colonies, and indentured servitude and slavery
Unit 3
Road to Revolution
British taxes, colonial protests such as boycotts and the Boston Tea Party, the Continental Congresses, and why Loyalists and Patriots saw things differently.
Benchmark: 5.4.19.2; 5.4.20.2 · the events that led to the American Revolution, from several perspectives
Unit 4
The American Revolution
The Declaration of Independence and its ideals, key battles from Lexington to Yorktown, help from France and others, and the people of many backgrounds who shaped the war.
Benchmark: 5.4.18.2; 5.4.19.2 · the American Revolution and what it meant for different groups
Unit 5
Building a Government
Why the Articles of Confederation were replaced, the compromises of 1787, the three branches, checks and balances, federalism and the Bill of Rights (1791).
Benchmark: 5.1.4.1; 5.1.2.1 · the Constitution's three branches, and the ideas of the Declaration of Independence
Unit 6
Colonies to Constitution
Ordering events from Columbus to the Bill of Rights, including slavery and resistance, to see causes and effects over time.
Benchmark: 5.4.18.2 · putting the events from the colonies to the Constitution in order
Unit 7
Explorers & Encounters
Practices the religious, political and economic reasons Europeans sailed to the Americas, the explorers and the Indigenous nations they met, and what changed for both, read from maps and accounts of the time.
Benchmark: 5.4.21.1; 5.3.13.1 · why Europeans came to the Americas, and maps of early America from different perspectives
Unit 8
Slavery & Resistance
Practices the difference between indentured servitude and slavery, how enslaved people resisted slavery and kept and built their cultures, and free Black communities in early America.
Benchmark: 5.4.19.1; 5.4.21.2 · how enslaved people resisted slavery and kept their cultures, and indentured servitude and slavery
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