The Transcontinental Railroad

All aboard! We've been chugging along learning all about the Transcontinental Railroad the last few weeks in reading. We began our unit watching Charlie Brown: This is America-The Transcontinental Railroad to gain background knowledge about the 2 railroad companies that laid tracks and the impact a transcontinental railroad had on the U.S.

Charlie Brown:This is America-The Transcontinetal Railroad

We continued building background knowledge using interactive lapbooks. Some of the activities included creating a flipbook about the "Big Four" industrialists who ran the 2 railroad companies and a mini book about the Golden Spike Ceremony where the 2 railroads met...

 The first book we read was the nonfiction text The Transcontinental Railroad. Next, we read Coolies, a fictional account of 2 Chinese brothers who worked for the Central Pacific Railroad and faced discrimination because of their nationality. We watched videos about the Boxer Rebellion to learn why many Chinese immigrated to the U.S and worked for the railroad and made story elements Chinese lanterns displaying the characters, plot, conflict, and resolution in the book...

 

Finally, we pretended we were immigrants working for one of the railroad companies and wrote postcards to our families about our experience. Here's our hallway bulletin board displaying our writing...

 

  Happy learning!