The Settlement

The same plan sounds smart or reckless, depending on how it is framed.

The Settlement puts your sixth graders in charge of founding a new community, choosing land, weighing competing histories, and allocating scarce resources. Over ten days the way each option is framed keeps nudging them, and the evidence keeps asking for a steadier look. The teams who see past the framing settle well. It is history and judgment together.

See what your students get, and why it lands.

No mockups. Every page below is real, pulled straight from the files you download. Tap any one to see it full size.

A worksheet was never going to teach this.

Your sixth graders are not reading a chapter about settlers. They are a founding committee, choosing where to build, whose account of the land to trust, and how to spend resources that will not stretch to everything. The same allocation can be framed as a bold gain or a risky loss, and the framing keeps pulling at them. The teams who look past how a choice is worded decide better. That is historical reasoning, with a settlement riding on it.

Tap to read the allocation choice

They are graded on their reasoning, not on how the settlement turns out.

Here is what surprises teachers. A team whose settlement prospered is not graded higher than one whose did not. The outcome is not the point. Students are assessed on the quality of their reasoning, traced through their own daily journal. A sound decision that ran into bad luck scores higher than a careless one that got lucky. That is how a sixth grader learns to value the thinking over the result.

Tap to read the grading note

Let the workbook hold the records.

The Settlement comes with a workbook that tracks the land, the resources, and every allocation the committee makes. They log their choices, and the totals keep themselves across the ten days. Their attention stays on the real work, what the community actually needs, instead of on the bookkeeping.

Tap to see the resource tracker

Every day is already scripted. You just run the room.

You do not need a history background to teach this. The guide scripts every day, names what students will likely say, and gives you exactly how to respond. The land, the historical accounts, and the final reckoning are all written for you. You bring the facilitation. The simulation brings everything else.

Tap to read the teacher guide

The lesson plan is already written.

Every simulation comes with a fully editable, admin-ready lesson plan. Standards alignment, daily pacing, learning objectives, differentiation, and an assessment plan are already done, so you can hand it to an administrator or adapt it to your district template in minutes.

Tap to preview the lesson plan

Everything you need to run it.