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Adding It Up

  • Before beginning work on the interactive, you may want to review these vocabulary terms.
  • Remember to share the information in the Help Section prior to starting the activity. Students can read and listen on-line, or you could print copies to read before, during, and after their work with this interactive.
  • In this interactive, site visitors explore a primary source document called A Relation of the Successefull beginnings of the Lord Baltemore's Plantation in Mary-land. This document was originally written to encourage people to settle in the Maryland colony. It told of the riches to be found there and gave explicit directions for materials that each person should bring with them, along with their approximate cost. As with any primary source document, students may have difficulty in reading its contents. You may want to work through the interactive as a class, using a screen projector to show the site. In this way, students can raise questions as they work together.
  • If students are using this interactive individually, make sure to encourage them to look at linked materials, accessible by clicking on words in red and brown.
  • To build comprehension, students can also access information about the currency system used at the time from all pages in the interactive. You may want to demonstrate how this money system worked before students begin working online.
  • Print out the Keys to Finding Information overview. You might consider sharing the information in this worksheet with students. This overview explains what students have to do to answer the questions in the text. It may help them decode the text by alerting them to the type of question or fact that is being presented. For example:

      Right ThereRight There — The answer is stated in the text

      Think and SearchThink and Search — Combine information highlighted with other things you've read and thought

      On Your OwnOn Your Own — Bring your own perspective to the ideas presented in the text

      Bonus FactBonus Fact — Extra information related to the text

      DefinitionDefinition — These clues help you unlock the meaning of certain words in the text


  • Please note, links may take students to sites outside of the Exploring Maryland's Roots site.

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