California History & Geography

Play the Transportation Game on the Sacramento History Online website.  The teacher should give you the worksheet, but if you don't have it, it's attached below.

California has many regions.

The Sacramento delta has rich farmland.

The Gold Rush was very important to California’s future.

Where did they discover gold?

June 26 we will go to Empire Mine.

Grass Valley is a foothill town.

The gold discovery caused California to develop.

Sutter’s Fort is a historic site.

The Napa Valley is an important wine region.

There are some large dairy farms in California.

The agricultural economy is important to California.

 A rancher raises cattle.

John Sutter was a German immigrant.

The Sacramento River delta is shaped like delta, a letter in the Greek alphabet.

A canal is a narrow channel that carries water.

 Levees protect towns and cities from floods.

 There are small islands in the delta that people go to for recreation

He is a descendant of the first Chinese that came to California.

Columbia State Park offers these resources for teaching about gold mining.

Click on the link to go to the site, or click on the attachment to download it from this site. The attachment will open in the appropriate program.

Gold Mining Techniques- PowerPoint Show

Script for PowerPoint

Mining Techniques Worksheet - A bit challenging for most adult ESL students, this might work as a group effort

Mining terms crossword

Crossword answers

Here are some sites to explore about California's missions:

California Missions Interactive

Virtual Tour of California Missions

Californnia MIssion Studies Association

California Missions Online Project

Historic Photos of Missions

California Missions

Here's a PowerPoint about Sutter's Fort. Click and open the attachment to view it.

Here are some websites that you can use to familiarize yourself and your students with the three state parks/museums that we are going to be going to:

Sutter's Fort & Capitol Museum- Friday, June 20

Sutter's Fort

• Official state park site
• Virtual museum of Sutter's Fort
• Pictorial story about the Fort
• Graphic diagram of the Fort
• Written history
• Teaching activities

Capitol Museum

• Virtual tours
• Architecture and History
• Educational resources
• Fine art
• Wikipedia article

Empire Mine State Park- Thursday, June 26

Empire Mine State Park

• Empire State Historic Park Association
• Official State Park site
• Nevada County Gold history site
• Historic Highway 49 Empire Mine page
• Pashnit Pictorial Story

California State Railroad Museum - Wednesday, July 9

• California State Railroad Museum Foundation
• California Stete Railroad Museum official site
• Old Sacramento State Historic Park
• Old Sacramento Association

Here are links that may be helpful for our summer themes:

Online Archive of California- a collection of papers, photos, and other documents, and links to other collections

California Online Resources in Education- 4th Grade California History

• Physical Geography Links
• Native Americans
• Missions, Presidios, Ranchos, and Pueblos
• Gold Rush
• Railroads and Communication after 1850
  

Sacramento History Online- Includes a couple of videos, two "games", photos, lesson plans, and documents

Sacramento History links- Links to museums and archives