Together, my son (age 5) and I read A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla. In this middle-elementary reader, a young girl in England struggles to keep her brother and sister together after her mother passes away. Because her father was a part of the advance group that traveled to Jamestown, she determines to get her young family to Jamestown as well. Reading this book together helped Raisin internalize what England would have been like, how traveling on a ship may have been, and the ways in which settling in Jamestown was a stark contrast to life in England at the time. Although it was written at a second or third grade reading level, it does not talk down to the reader, and the somewhat complex story provides for an interesting adventure.
A side note: to begin our study of Jamestown in our homeschool, we watched a video online about the settlement and played a “build a colony” game online as well. My son played it over and over again: sometimes his colonists died; other times they became wealthy.
Our homeschool American History learning happened to correlate to the Thanksgiving Holiday! We recently finished learning about the pilgrims, which works out very well for us since we’re taking the next week slow, as a holiday from lots of school work. But before we got the pilgrims, though, we read a few books about Jamestown.
