Transcontinental Railroad In The Westward Expansion

The students have done a lot of researching with the iPads as well as with the in class library about westward expansion. The teacher did a read aloud about the transcontinental railroad and had a discussion with students about why the transcontinental railroad played an important role in the westward expansion. One student believed that trains had always existed, but the teacher explained that trains were actually constructed in the 1800s. The teacher told the students to write down a few new facts they had just learned about the transcontinental railroad and asked for volunteers to share. As each student shared she wrote down the notes on the ELMO for students to copy down in case they had not chosen that as one of their facts. Following
this activity, the teacher had me create a timeline with the students about the several different events in history related to westward expansion. We created the timeline first by making partners and having the students chose out of a hat the event in history in relation to the westward expansion timeline that they were going to represent. Once the students knew the event they had to look back into their notes and look at the date it happened and remember why it was important. Once everyone knew the date the students had to get in order from the oldest date to the not so old. The students then went around the room saying the date, the event, and what was important about that event.