The Americas before the arrival of Europeans
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can describe what North America was like before the arrival of Europeans.
Key learning points
- Indigenous peoples of North America were divided into different groups from small families to large empires.
- Some North American tribes would be both farmers and hunter-gatherers like the Iroquois tribe.
- Some well-known empires of North America included the Inuits in the North and Mayans and Aztecs in the South.
- European travellers to North America started from the 900s with the Viking and Greenland explorers.
Keywords
Native Americans - Native Americans are members of any of the societies who originally inhabited North and South America and the Caribbean Islands
Indigenous - indigenous people are the original inhabitants of a specific area
Nation - a nation is a community of people linked together by shared language, territory, ethnicity, or culture
Empire - an empire is a group of countries or provinces ruled from the centre by a person or group of people
Hunter-gatherers - hunter-gatherers are people who live off hunting, fishing, and harvesting wild food
Common misconception
All Native American were the same and part of a single society.
There was a wide range of indigenous nations in the Americas, with many differences between their sizes, social structure and cultures.
Teacher tip
Pupils may appreciate the differences between indigenous societies through further visual instruction. Images of housing can be quite useful to explore contrasts (i.e. Iroquois longhouses vs pueblos).
Content guidance
Depiction or discussion of violence or suffering
Supervision
Adult supervision recommended
Licence
except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which of these continents are not physically connected to Europe?
Q2.What physical barrier separates Europe from the Americas?
Q3.True or false? In the fifteenth century, most Europeans believed the world was flat.
Q4.Order these events chronologically from least to most recent.
Q5.What is 'a group of countries all ruled over by one person or country' called?
Q6.If Europeans wanted to spread Christianity to more people, what type of motive does this suggest they had for sailing abroad?
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Why were Viking attempts to settle in North America abandoned?
Q2.Why can Native Americans be described as indigenous to the Americas?
Q3.Which Native American empire ruled over more than five million people?
Q4.What type of home did most Iroquois live in?
Q5.What were the Three Sisters?
Q6.What was happening to the Iroquois population before Europeans arrived in the Americas?
To help you plan your 8 history lesson on: The Americas before the arrival of Europeans, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 8 history lesson on: The Americas before the arrival of Europeans, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 3 history lessons from the European conquest of the Americas: why was its impact so devastating? unit, dive into the full secondary history curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.