Trail of Tears Unit Study and Lapbook

Before I tell you about the trail of tears unit study and lapbook that I have planned for fall, I want to say congratulations to Crystal Cook, our grand prize winner of the Explorers Basket.

All I could “hear” were squeals on the other side of my email.  Too, I restrained myself from commenting on each reply, which you know is hard for me to do, but wanted you to know that I read each comment.

I value your input because though I may not get to do each suggestion, I sure do try to eventually.

Also, I may be wildly insane for even attempting to prepare the Trail of Tears unit study and lapbook about 14 days before we have to be out of our house and hotel hopping, but I would rather plan and have it than to not plan.

I am just giving you heads up now that this unit study, though I don’t want it to be, may stand half-baked for a while because our huge move overseas is here.

I can’t even begin to tell you all the details that are consuming when you don’t have a forwarding address yet, or will be totally mobile. 

Too, I am still transferring files over to my laptop and by the way if you know of a good mini (and I do mean mini) printer that is easy to get cartridges for, let me know.

Back to my unit study, I pushed myself one more time to go ahead and at least get the printables started on this unit study because it really is a time period that I wanted Tiny to study at an older age. 

Though we will focus of course on the culture and life of a few different Native American people, I wanted to expose the injustices and ugly side of American history. 

Those are teachable moments too of examples that we do not want to be like. 

The ugly side of history is something we do not shy away from, but I do wait to talk about it when each of the boys are more middle to high school age. 

It’s crazy though how even very young children know when something is not fair and can have empathy for a fellow being. 

It’s just when they are older they can value the model lessons.

Also, in preparing my lapbooks, as I talk about in the new The Big Book Of Homeschool Ideas where I am a co-author, one way to keep doing lapbooks for the middle to high school ages is to be sure clip art is not babyish.  That is a huge turnoff to the older kids.

That is one aversion I have to many printables and that is the clip art outgrows your crew in about one year.  It’s okay for sure if the focus is on the younger crew and sometimes it is.

  But I mostly aim for middle to high school because there is so much content for younger kids and not much for hands-on and to keep learning fun through to the upper grades.

I think sometimes finding appropriate clip art is more time consuming than actually doing the unit study, but I find it so worth the time for our kids.

Today, I have two minibooks. 

Well, actually one minibook and then a tear shaped printable to use either on the front of your lapbook or inside lapbook as a way to introduce The Trail of Tears.

Trail of Tears silhouette credit: Edees Crafty Corner

How to Get the Free Trail of Tears Lapbook

Now, how to grab the free lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

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