Instructional Lesson:

History 1 - Grades 4&5

Abstract
This lesson offers a simple strategy that can be used with any historical topic to develop and assess the skills embedded within history benchmark 1 at the grade 4-5 cluster.

Targeted Audience: Grades 4-5

Time to Complete: approximately 15 minutes.

Benchmark Addressed: History 1 [Chronology]

• Students will study historical events and persons within a given time frame in order to create a chronology and identify related cause-effect factors.

Procedures

• After completing a unit, provide students with a list of dates and events related to the unit topic. Present them to the students out of chronological order and be sure to include events that have causal relationships. For example, events from a unit on the Civil War might include

  -Emancipation Proclamation
  -Lincoln elected President
  -Lee surrenders at Appomattox
  -John Brown's Raid
  -South Carolina secedes
  -Lincoln assassinated
  -Uncle Tom's Cabin published
  -Battle of Antietam
  -Confederate States of American formed

• Ask students to take the events and place them in chronological order (create a timeline).
• After the students have completed their timelines ask them to circle any two events on the timeline that have a causal relationship, identify which is the cause and which is the effect, and explain how one event caused the other event to occur.