In addition to the problems in asylums, prisons were filled to overflowing with everyone who gave offense to society from committing murder to spitting on the street. Men, women, children were thrown together in the most atrocious conditions. Something needed to be done — but what?

If you have a painting on the wall of your home today, it may be because of the influence of a group of painters known as the Hudson River artists. While not as individually famous as many other American painters of the 19th century, as a group they had an important contribution to make.

Removing seeds from newly picked cotton is not as simple as it sounds. Cotton is sticky when removed from the plant, and pulling the seeds from its grasp is difficult. Throughout the 1700s, cotton production was expensive because of the huge amount of labor necessary to remove the seeds. All was changed with the invention of the cotton gin. What once was painstakingly slow was now relatively fast. By the end of the 18th century, demand for cotton was increasing as power looms were able to turn out great quantities of cloth. With the cotton gin, southern cotton plantations could now supply the world's demand.

During the 1600s, patterns of life were borrowed from the English countryside and transplanted onto America's southern shores. These included a glorification of riding, hunting, and etiquette.

When Americans think of African-Americans in the Deep South before the Civil War, the first image that invariably comes to mind is one of slavery. However, many African-Americans were able to secure their freedom and live in a state of semi-freedom even before slavery was abolished by war. Free blacks lived in all parts of the United States, but the majority lived amid slavery in the American South. It is estimated that by 1860 there were about 1.5 million free blacks in the southern states.

As the cotton industry took hold and slavery became more and more entrenched across the American south, the opposition to the Peculiar Institution began to grow.

For the entire generation of people that grew up in the years that led to the Civil War, William Lloyd Garrison was the voice of Abolitionism. Originally a supporter of colonization, Garrison changed his position and became the leader of the emerging anti-slavery movement. His publication, The Liberator, reached thousands of individuals worldwide. His ceaseless, uncompromising position on the moral outrage that was slavery made him loved and hated by many Americans.

Once the colonization effort was defeated, free African-Americans in the North became more active in the fight against slavery. They worked with white abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips to spread the word. They developed publications and contributed money. Many, such as Robert Purvis, dedicated their lives to freeing individual slaves from bondage. Although many pledged their lives to the cause, three African-American abolitionists surpassed others in impact. They were David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth.

Across the north, readers of Uncle Tom's Cabin became acutely aware of the horrors of slavery on a far more personal level than ever before. In the south the book was met with outrage and branded an irresponsible book of distortions and overstatements. In such an explosive environment, her story greatly furthered the Abolitionist cause north of the Mason-Dixon Line and promoted sheer indignation in plantation America.

Most Texan-Americans wanted to be annexed by the United States. They feared that the Mexican government might soon try to recapture their land. Many had originally come from the American south and had great interest in becoming a southern state. President Andrew Jackson saw trouble. Many Whigs and Abolitionists in the North refused to admit another slave state to the Union. Rather than risk tearing the nation apart over this controversial issue, Jackson did not pursue annexation. The Lone Star flag flew proudly over the Lone Star Republic for nine years.

The southern boundary of the United States with Mexico was not the only western territory under dispute. The Oregon Territory spanned the modern states of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, as well as the western coast of Canada up to the border of Russian Alaska. Both Great Britain and America claimed the territory. The Treaty of 1818 called for joint occupation of Oregon — a solution that was only temporary. Led by missionaries, American settlers began to outnumber British settlers by the late 1830s. But Britain was not Mexico. Its powerful navy was still the largest in the world. Twice before had Americans taken up arms against their former colonizers at great expense to each side. Prudence would suggest a negotiated settlement, but the spirit of manifest destiny dominated American thought. Yet another great showdown loomed.

Congress admitted Texas to the Union in a joint resolution passed the day before Polk's inauguration. Mexico was outraged. Inclusion in the United States would forever rule out the possibility of re-acquiring the lost province.

In January of 1848, a man named James Marshall innocently noticed a few shiny flecks in a California stream at Sutter's Mill. Word spread of gold and soon people from all over California flocked inland seeking instant fortune. By autumn, word had reached the east, and once again Americans earned their reputation as a migratory people. During the year that followed, over 80,000 "forty-niners" flocked to California to share in the glory. Some would actually strike it rich, but most would not.

Most modern American citizens consider Great Britain to be their European "parent" country. However, by the time British arrived in the New World and established their first permanent settlement at Jamestown in 1607, much of the continent had already been claimed by other European nations.

This lesson unit is intended to help teachers assess how well students are able to visualize two-dimensional cross-sections of representations of three-dimensional objects. In particular, the lesson will help you identify and help students who have difficulties recognizing and drawing two-dimensional cross-sections at different points along a plane of a representation of a three-dimensional object.

This lesson unit is intended to help teachers assess how well students are able to visualize two-dimensional cross-sections of representations of three-dimensional objects. In particular, the lesson will help you identify and help students who have difficulties recognizing and drawing two-dimensional cross-sections at different points along a plane of a representation of a three-dimensional object.

This Demonstration illustrates the concept of rotating a 2D polygon. The rotation matrix is displayed for the current angle. The default polygon is a square that you can modify.

Unit abstract

The following lessons come from the Everyday Math (version 4) curriculum.  I have adapted the lessons by including face-to-face small group lessons, specific technology activities, and center activities (some being small group/buddy and some being independent).  I will be using a group rotation model during the implementation of this unit.  Each day will include a 1 hour block of time, with 20 minutes for each rotation.

Students will learn about attributes of two dimensional shapes.  Students will learn about defining and nondefining attributes of shapes.  Students will explore shapes through a building activity.  Students will combine two dimensional shapes to make composite figures.

Lesson 7.5  Attributes of shapes

Lesson 7.7  Defining and Nondefining Attributes

Lesson 8.1  Building shapes with Defining Attributes

Lesson 8.5  Combining 2-Dimensional Shapes

This description of this activity is a 2-day lesson: Day 1, Field Lab, Day 2, and Classroom Investigation.
In this field lab, children working in groups will collect 3 samples of soil from different locations. Each sample will be placed in a different Ziploc bag, the groups will label the bags and record in their notebooks the location of each sample, including 5 observations about the area near the location the sample was taken from. They will need to make a plan on how to record and label the bags and locations so when we return to the classroom they will have a system for knowing the location. Individually, each student will also include in his/her notebook a question about each area or the soil collected. Groups will discuss own observation/questions. Each group will share 2 observations they made and 1 question they are wondering. The groups will bring their soil samples back to the classroom. Once back in the classroom, the students will work to create a data recording system and develop an investigable question about the soil. The students will also have available other sample soils provided by the teacher. Students will use the materials and observe the soils and record their findings. The groups would share their data and create a class chart of the information. Ask: What can we notice from this information? What questions do you have about the information?

In the previous unit children learned the procedures and routines needed to carry on with some independence as they begin building reading stamina. This unit continues with those routines and building stamina as students begin working on emergent storybook reading in a focused and concentrated way.In this unit children read emergent storybooks. Emergent storybook reading comes from Elizabeth Sulzby’s work on emergent literacy. The premise behind emergent storybook reading is that as students are exposed to the multiple readings of the emergent storybooks they begin to read these books on their own. Through these readings and familiarity of the emergent storybooks students’ begin to develop deeper understandings of the text, a strong sense of language and an increased desire to read independently.The first part of this units focuses on ways readers can read books using all they know to help themselves read. Early strategies like predicting and rereading are introduced. The way students read emergent story books develops over time; some children’s construction of the story will probably first involve looking at and commenting on each picture. Over time, all children learn to approximate and read the way the story sounds as if the child were reproducing the words and cadence of the text.The second part of this unit focuses on how readers study, think and grow ideas about books. They use their partners to talk about their thinking and share their understandings.The unit ends with readers trying different ways to read and share their books through retellings and acting out their favorite parts. This unit supports many of the Common Core State Standards, one of which states thatstudents need to engage in many different ways of reading independently and in partnerships with purpose and understanding.This unit should include the opportunity to introduce book bags and book shopping days. Students should have the chance to keep books until the next time they shop for new books. It is highly recommended that students shop for books (up to ten emergent story books) outside of reading workshop. This helps with management and time. Students may shop for ‘Look Books’ or the teacher can continue to use the tubs from unit 1 (adding new titles as needed). Since students will continue to have time allotted to read “Look Books” like the ones available in unit 1, the teacher should decide how to help students differentiate between emergent story books and Look Books.