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4th grade · Social Studies · Unit 9 of 10

Coming to New York

Immigration and migration

What your child practices

Why people came to New York (push and pull factors), Irish immigration after the potato famine, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, tenements and neighborhoods, the Great Migration and Harlem, and newcomers from around the world today. Factual and neutral.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 4.7; 4.7a; 4.7b · why immigrants and migrants came to New York, where they settled and how they shaped the state

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Push factors make people leave, like hunger or war. Pull factors draw them, like jobs or freedom.
  2. Millions of immigrants passed through Ellis Island, past the Statue of Liberty.
  3. In the Great Migration, many African Americans moved north. Harlem became a center of culture.

Example: Is “jobs in a new city” a push factor or a pull factor? A pull draws people to a new place. Jobs attract people. Answer: a pull factor

Coming to New York in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 9 of 10 in 4th grade Social Studies, after Making & Earning in New York and before New York Through Time.

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: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

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

    Crowded apartment buildings where many immigrant families lived were called…

    • mansions
    • tenements
    • farmhouses
    • longhouses

  2. Question 2

    The Great Migration was the move of many African Americans from…

    • Europe to Canada
    • New York to the South
    • the West to Europe
    • the South to cities in the North

  3. Question 3

    A reason that draws people to a new place is called a…

    • towpath
    • compass rose
    • pull factor
    • push factor

  4. Question 4

    Why did many African Americans move to New York during the Great Migration?

    • to work on the Erie Canal in 1825
    • to look for gold
    • for factory jobs and to escape unfair laws in the South
    • to join the Dutch

  5. Question 5

    Which was a pull factor that drew many immigrants to New York?

    • unfair laws at home
    • a war at home
    • jobs in factories and cities
    • a famine

  6. Question 6

    About how many immigrants passed through Ellis Island?

    • about 12 thousand
    • about 12 million
    • about 1,200
    • about 12 billion

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