History in Your Own Backyard

History in Your Own Backyard, Primers to the Past: Teaching Our Past

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Part I: Economic Influences on the Virginia Colony Table of Contents:
Economic Influences on the Virginia Colony: A list of each activity and suggested uses are outlined with the correlating SOL.
Tobacco and Slavery in the Virginia Colony: This passage outlines the history of tobacco and slavery in the Virginia colony with specific references to local history.
Tobacco and the Virginia Colony: This activity requires students to complete an outline using notes from Tobacco and Slavery in the Virginia Colony to demonstrate understanding of material read.
Colonial Virginia Economic System Vocabulary Terms: In this activity, students will define colonial Virginia economic terms using context clues from Tobacco and Slavery in the Virginia Colony.
Colonial Virginia Economics: This activity reinforces student knowledge of colonial Virginia economic terms, using primary source documents highlighting George Washington's business transactions with an English merchant.
Colonial Virginia Economic Questions Review: In this activity, students will respond to questions using Colonial Virginia Economics.
Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - Cause & Effect: This activity requires students to identify the cause and effect relationship between tobacco, slavery and the Virginia colony.
Colonial Virginia Economic Vocabulary Review: This activity provides a review of colonial Virginia economic vocabulary terms by writing from the perspective of an eighteenth century merchant.
Valuable Tobacco/Valuable Tobacco Questions: In this activity, student knowledge of tobacco is enhanced by reading an actual invoice requesting goods for George Washington from an English merchant. Follow-up questions are provided.
Tobacco and Slavery: This activity allows students to role play picking tobacco and packing hogsheads for sale in England.
Slave Labor in the Virginia Colony: This activity provides students with knowledge of the importance of the different kinds of jobs performed by a slave.
The Many Jobs of A Slave: Students will compare and contrast jobs performed by slaves with jobs of today, while continuing to enhance their understanding of the influence of slavery in the colonia era.
A Fredericksburg Plantation: In this activity, students learn about a local plantation and its owners, Fielding Lewis and Betty Washington, as they discover the characteristics of a plantation.
Plantation Vs. Small Town: This activity provides a follow-up to A Fredericksburg Plantation, by having sudents compare the similarities between a plantaion and a small town.
Invoice from Crosbies & Trafford: This primary source document is a copy of an original invoice of goods shipped to George Washington by an English merchant, providing and example of how colonial Virginians used tobacco to purchase goods.
Slaves Belonging to the Estate of Fielding Lewis: This primary source document, lists actual names and jobs of slaves belonging to notable Fredericksburg merchant and leader, Fielding Lewis.
The Main Idea: This graphic organizer was designed for use with the passage, Tobacco and Slavery in the Virginia Colony. Students will use key words from the passage to highlight essential details for each paragraph.
Ads from the Virginia Gazette: Several copies of original ads taken from the Virginia Gazette, listing the sale of slaves in Fredericksburg.
Sources

Project Coordinators:
Sarah Cook, Walker Grant Middle School
Katya Zablotney, Walker Grant Middle School

History in Your Own Backyard is a resource guide for 4th and 5th grade teachers that provides lesson plans about 18th century Virginia, dealing in particular with tobacco, slavery, and the Revolutionary War.

This resource guide gives a local flavor to the Virginia Standards of Learning by showing how people in the Fredericksburg area were affected by colonial economics and the Revolutionary War.

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