The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum – Lesson Experience Series is a unique series of articles that shows you how you can use lesson plans in the free Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum with your children, grandchildren, or students. (The curriculum teaches American history and traditional food recipes to students in grades K-12.)
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About The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum – Lesson Experience Series
Hello! My name is Jamie O’Hara, and I’m a curriculum writer and homeschool parent of three. I previously helped Mary Bryant Shrader create The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum to accompany her bestselling book, The Modern Pioneer Cookbook. (The free curriculum contains lesson plans for grades K-12 to help teach children and grandchildren about traditional foods and gain lifelong skills in the kitchen.)
I chronicled my family’s experience with The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum lessons with my children. With each Lesson Experience, I detail how my family learned the lesson, and for this curriculum, I included additional free activities you can download and print out to supplement each curriculum lesson.
- Get The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum (Free and over 250 pages!)
- Get The Modern Pioneer Cookbook
- Read The Modern Pioneer Cookbook Curriculum – Lesson Experience Article Series
New American History Curriculum
With the release of the new Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum for America’s 250th birthday, I’m excited to share with you a new Lesson Experience Article Series. I hope this article series will give you inspiration on how to use The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum with your family too!
- Get The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum (Free and over 150 pages!)
Note: You do not need any extra books to use The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum. Everything you need is contained in the curriculum!
The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum
I was excited when Mary asked me to work with her to develop a new curriculum to celebrate the semiquincentennial anniversary of the United States of America because history and food intersect in such interesting and meaningful ways.
We worked together to create The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America—a special curriculum that celebrates traditional foods and American history 250 years after our nation’s founding!
- Free K–12 American History Curriculum With Traditional Recipes (Watch the video and read the blog post to learn more about the free Modern Pioneer Celebrates America curriculum)
Lessons Divided Into Grade Bands and Recipe Themes
The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum is free, super easy to use, and does not require a cookbook purchase. The curriculum is divided into three grade bands—elementary (K-4), middle school (5-8), and high school (9-12)—and three recipe themes: drinks, breads, and sweets.
The elementary lessons are written as a script for parents and teachers to read aloud to students. This means everything is in one place and is very easy to follow. The middle and high school lessons can be completed by students independently or facilitated by a parent or teacher.
What You’ll Find With Each Lesson Plan
Each lesson plan contains the same elements:
- Recipe
- Spotlight on home cooking in American history
- Discussion of an important principle of American government
- Example of a primary source
- Short biography of a historical figure
- Geography topic
- Spotlight on a particular food ingredient
- Literature selection
- Kitchen math question
You can think of the different elements of each lesson plan as modules that can be completed at different times or in a different sequence. For example, although the recipe preparation is the first part of each lesson plan, you can always start with some of the other readings and activities and come back to the recipe when you have the time or ingredients.
Lesson Experience Article Series
I’m excited to facilitate a number of the lessons in The Modern Pioneer Celebrates America Curriculum with my children, ages 5, 9, and 11. By sharing our family’s experience with the lesson plans, I hope you’ll gain additional ideas for working with your children, grandchildren, or students as you progress through the curriculum.
- Part 1: Early American Drinks
- More coming soon!
Thanks for Your Support: This curriculum material is offered free for families, homeschoolers, co-ops, teachers, grandparents, and lifelong learners. If this resource helps your family and you would like to support the creation of future Mary’s Nest curriculum materials, consider becoming a Sweet Friend Supporter on Patreon.
Optional: Sign up for the free Mary’s Nest Newsletter to be informed of updates to the curriculum, new lesson experiences, and more!
Additional Inspiration
With each lesson experience, you’ll find plenty of pictures as I work through the curriculum with my children. While you can always customize each lesson plan for your students’ needs, we hope that these lesson experiences will give you additional inspiration and new techniques to help you work with your children, grandchildren, or other students to teach them about American history, how to make traditional foods, and gain lifelong kitchen skills.