Waterways Unit

The Virginia Standards of Learning for geography, fifth grade, are rather extensive. For my classroom, I break the standards and activities into smaller chunks for the students to grasp concepts and retain information. The activities on this page are one component of this geography unit.

USI2c The student will use maps, globes, photographs, pictures, and tables to locate and identify the water features important to the early history of the United States: Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Missouri River, Ohio River, Columbia River, Colorado River, Rio Grande, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Start with a Song..

WATERWAYS SONG Tune: Clementine

By: Miss Froehlich

There are waterways in our nation

From sea to shining sea

Six are our major rivers

Come and name them all with me.

Mississippi and Missouri and the Colorado too.

Rio Grande and Columbia, don't forget the Ohio blue.

They were traveled on by famous people,

Looking for ocean and new land,

Lewis and Clark on the Columbia

To the Pacific, hey, that's grand!

The Gulf of Mexico in the South

Was a route for the French and Spanish.

They founded part of Texas

Moved further inland and never vanished.

The great Atlantic on the East coast

Was a highway for so many,

explorers and settlers,

Immigrants through New York City.

The blue Pacific on the West coast,

Sighted by a Spanish conquistador,

The great Balboa used this water route,

As his exploration door.

The Great Lakes in the North,

Huron and Michigan to name a few,

Are important to our country,

As great ports for things to move.

The Colorado is a river

That borders many states,

Alarcon sailed there in 1540

And Yuma, Arizona was his fate.

The Rio Grande means big river,

It's a border for two places.

The Spanish founded this one

And you see it between Mexico and Texas

RESOURCES

* Waterways study guide for group discussion

* Geography rivers note cards

Water Pictures

Water Vocabulary

On the Internet, search for pictures of the different waterways and maps. Print the pictures and mount on construction paper. Hang examples of the different waterways for students to observe the location, formation, and key terms (tributary, mouth, etc). These visuals are really important in learning the concepts.

My students make a water vocabulary book at the beginning of the unit. The book ideas come from Dinah Zike's book, THE BIG BOOK OF UNITED STATES HISTORY. I highly recommend this book. There are many other books and manipulative study guides the kids can make. I make the sentence strip book for the water vocabulary. The students write the word (bay, harbor, gulf, etc) on the outside, open the flap and then write the meaning of the geographical term and find a picture of this term on the Internet or draw what it would look like.

Dinah Zike's Book

To make the accordion-flip book, here is a picture.

Entire book view Page open view

WATERWAYS STUDY GUIDE

We call this one, "The Flipper"

You need two sets of cards. Set B (tell the kids, "B=bottom) for the answers and Set A for the top (Question). I include a map or other picture of the content area we are studying at the bottom.

More coming soon....

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September, 2007