content page for the United States Southeast Region lesson plan. There are eight photos of different animals that inhabit some of the areas in the region. These include a crocodile, red wolves, elk, a bear, and an armadillo." width="140" height="140" />
United States Southeast Region explores the 12 states of this corner of the nation. Students will discover so much about the wildlife, climate, and history of this region of the US. They will learn about one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, the Appalachians.
The Southeast region is full of diversity and culture. Through their research during the activity, students will identify lots of unique facts about these states. Several national parks cover some of these areas. And students may even recognize a few of the famous landmarks, such as Disney World and Fort Knox.
Categories: Downloadable, Social Studies Tags: 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th GradeLesson Objectives and Overview: United States Southeast Region contains lots of facts about these special states. Similar to other lessons on the nation’s regions, it provides history, facts, and fun activities. Students will learn about many topics throughout the lesson. This lesson is for students in 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade.
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. This lesson requires colored pencils, markers, construction or poster paper, and scratch paper. Also ensure students have access to the internet.
You can check out the “Options for Lesson” section of the classroom procedure page for additional suggestions for ideas and activities to incorporate into the lesson. Students may work alone or in groups for the activity. Use state information to create fact booklets about the region. Students could create a PowerPoint presentation for one or more states. Using each state name, students could create acrostic poems using information about the state. Students could also create a different type of poem about a state that you assign or that they choose. Conduct a “Southeastern States” spelling bee. Ask students to spell only places of the southeast region, matching them to states. Students research foods of the region and then plan a meal of the different regional food dishes.
The teacher notes page provides an extra paragraph of information to help guide the lesson. It mentions the importance that students familiarize themselves with each region in the country. You can use the blank lines to write down any other ideas or thoughts you have about the topic as you prepare.
The United States Southeast Region lesson plan contains five content pages. As you now already know, there are 50 states that compose the United States of America. We often divide the continental country into five geographic regions: northeast, midwest, west, southwest, and southeast. This is because the different regions share many natural or artificial features such as language, government, ideology, religion, forests, wildlife, and climate.
The southeast region of the United States includes twelve states. They are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The region includes a variety of landscapes and landforms, such as mountains, wilderness and forests, farmland, beaches, and swamps. It also includes the Mississippi River, the longest river in the United States. The river’s source is in Minnesota, and it flows south for 2,320 miles to its mouth in Louisiana.
One of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth is the Appalachians, covering most of the upper part of the southeast region. Some of its peaks are more than 6,000 feet high. That makes them the region’s highest landforms east of the Mississippi River. There are many smaller rivers and pine and oak forests throughout the Appalachian Mountains as well. The mountain range extends south, beginning in Canada, and stretches almost 2,000 miles to central Alabama.
The climate of the region varies throughout the year. Mountain temperatures in the Appalachians can drop below freezing during the winter. But in areas like Florida, low winter temperatures average about 60 degrees. If you travel to the northern southeastern states, the winter temperatures will be colder.
However, during the summer months, the weather does not vary as much. The region is hot and humid, with temperatures in the 80s and 90s, especially along the Atlantic Coast. In addition, the area sometimes faces hurricanes along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts that can reach land in the summer and fall months.
The Southeast is home to the coastal plains as well, with nearly 2,000 miles of sandy beaches. There are also wetlands, such as the Florida Everglades. These areas include swamps and marshes and are home to many rare plants and animals such as egrets and ibis. Other animals we can find in the region are bears, red wolves, elk, alligators, and crocodiles. There are also the white-tailed deer, Virginia opossum, nine-banded armadillo, eastern cottontail rabbit, and many others.
Before English colonists founded and settled America, the Cherokee Indians lived in the Southeast. One famous Cherokee was Sequoyah, who invented the Cherokee alphabet. In addition, the famous Trail of Tears took place in the Southeast between 1831 and 1850. Because they wanted more land, the American settlers forced the Cherokee to leave their homes.
During the early years of America, the interests of the North and South aligned, but things changed in the 1800s. The North focused on industry, the South cultivated crops. Many of the eastern states of the region began making money growing and selling cotton and tobacco. Large farms, called plantations, needed more laborers to work the fields, which led to the beginning of slavery in the United States.
Slavery spread throughout the South and became a contentious issue between the North and South. The North was against slavery, but the South saw it as a way of life. The conflict led North Carolina to secede, or withdraw or break away, formally from the country. Then 10 other southern states followed suit. The goal was to start a new nation called the Confederate States of America or the CSA. The issue led to the Civil War, which ended in 1865 with the abolition of slavery throughout America.
Unfortunately, many cities in the region still practiced legalized racial segregation. People did not treat African Americans with political or economic equality. However, with the hard work of many people, including Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders, the end of segregation came in the 20th century.
Though this region of the United States shares many natural and artificial features, each of the twelve states is unique in many ways. The lesson lists the states in a chart and provides some information about each one. It also includes the general population as of 2021, rounded to the nearest thousand.
Alabama is home to the Space and Rocket Center and the Rosa Parks Museum and Library. It is also where Helen Keller was born. Arkansas boasts landmarks like the Hot Springs National Park and the Ozarks. Littler Rock is its capital. Florida, nicknamed the Sunshine State, has many tourist attractions, like Disney World and NASA Kennedy Space Center.
Georgia is the Peach State and is the largest state in the region. It is home to the world’s largest indoor aquarium. Famous for the Kentucky Derby is the Bluegrass State of Kentucky, which is also home to Fort Knox. Louisiana also has many tourist attractions, including the annual Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. Its capital is Baton Rouge.
Mississippi, while somewhat large, only has a population of just under 3 million residents. North Carolina, on the other hand, is similar in size but has about 10.5 million people. South Carolina is home to several historic forts and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown.
Tennessee has the nickname of the Volunteer State and is home to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Virginia boasts several historic attractions, like George Washington’s home in Mt. Vernon and Thomas Jefferson’s home in Monticello. Finally, West Virginia has the smallest population. But it also has millions of acres of state parks.
The United States Southeast Region lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
For the activity, students will create tourism posters for a state you assign to them. You can have them work with partners or in groups if you wish. The worksheet lists several resources to use for collecting info and artwork for the posters. Students will answer a few questions after they complete the posters.
In the first part of the practice worksheet, students will match capital cities to the correct state. In the next part, they will match other cities, attractions, and people to the state it represents. For example, Hellen Keller would match with Alabama because it is her birthplace. Finally, they will list the states from most to least populated.
The homework assignment is a simple one. There are a total of 22 questions regarding various states. The first 20 questions require simple answers. The final two questions require longer answers. For instance, students will describe the climate of the Southeast.
There are answer keys for the practice and homework worksheets at the end of the document. All the correct answers are in red to make it easy to compare them to students’ work. There may be a little variation on a couple of the prompts on the homework page given the nature of the question. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
3rd Grade, 4th Grade, 5th Grade
LB.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3, 7, LB.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.3, 7, LB.ELA-Literacy.RI.5.3, 7
Lessons are aligned to meet the education objectives and goals of most states. For more information on your state objectives, contact your local Board of Education or Department of Education in your state.
