Skip to content
PlayOwl

History, Civics & Social Studies · Grade 4

Migration, Land and Changing Communities

Fourth graders follow the land of Illinois: how Native homelands became surveyed squares of land for sale, how the steel plow, drainage and the railroads turned tallgrass prairie into farms and new towns, how Illinois shifted from farms to cities and suburbs, and how people today weigh farming, building and protecting the last pieces of prairie.

  • 4 lessons
  • About 90 minutes
  • Land and change check: 9 questions
  • Ways to answer: choose an answer, match pairs, type a number, put in order, sort into groups and true or false
Try it now (no account) One of the five free starter courses Open in PlayOwl

What learners will discover

  • Explain how land cessions and the public land survey turned Native homelands into land sold to settlers.
  • Describe how technology, such as the steel plow, drainage and railroads, transformed the Illinois prairie and where people settled.
  • Explain how and why Illinois communities shifted from rural to urban and suburban, and weigh the benefits and costs of land-use change.

Lessons

  1. From homelands to land for sale 5 steps3 practiceabout 28 min
  2. Breaking the prairie 5 steps3 practiceabout 30 min
  3. Farms, cities and suburbs 3 steps2 practiceabout 16 min
  4. Choosing how to use land today 3 steps1 practiceabout 16 min
  5. Land and change check 9 questions at the end

Keep exploring

More 4th grade social studies

Guide for grown-ups