Pre-visit Activities

Pre-Visit Lesson:

For Grades 3–5:

Teacher Preparation: View website (see lesson item one, below) prior to lesson. Copy the constructed response worksheets below or use a projection screen and complete the worksheets as a group activity.
Time required: 40–50 minutes
Technology requirements: computer with internet connection and projection capability, or computer lab

Lesson:

  1. Go to PBS Kids’ Big Apple HistoryClick on Early New York. On the timeline, click Before 1600. Read and discuss Native People. There are icons that you can open that show video clips and/or historical documents.

  2. Continue to the next articles: Dutch West India Company and The First Twenty Years, which emphasize the cultural diversity of the colony and the promotion of commerce. Note that the colony developed far differentlythan the colonies that were settled to gain religious freedom.  In the 1600’s the Dutch West India Company was more powerful and successful than Microsoft, IBM, or General Motors are today.  The company’s thousands of employees had one primary goal: to make money.

  3. Distribute attached Constructed Response Question One, which relates to Dutch/Native American transactions in the seventeenth century. Have children work in small cooperative groups to complete the tasks.

  4. Distribute attached Constructed Response Question Two activity to examine the products the Hudson Valley imported and the countries from which they came.

For Grades 6–8:

Teacher Preparation: View website (see lesson item one, below) prior to lesson. Copy the constructed response worksheets below   Add the worksheets or use a projection screen and complete the worksheets as a group activity.
Time required: 40–50 minutes
Technology requirements: computer with internet connection and projection capability, or computer lab

Lesson:

  1. Go to Cross Roads & Cross Rivers hudsonvalley.org/crossroads/frameset.html

  2. Click on Stories at the top of the page.

  3. Read and discuss the cultural diversity of the Hudson Valley between 1680 and 1750.

  4. Distribute attached Constructed Response Question One, which relates to Dutch/Native American transactions in the seventeenth century. Have children work independently or in small cooperative groups to complete the tasks.

  5. Distribute attached Constructed Response Question Two activity to examine the products the Hudson Valley imported and the countries from which they came.

Additional Resource for Grades 3–8:
New Netherland Virtual Tour nnp.org/vtour/