Sacagawea

The Lemhi Shoshone woman who helped the explorers.

Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.

What children learn in Level 23

Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone girl. Her people lived near the Rocky Mountains.
When she was about 12, she was captured and taken far from home, to villages along the Missouri River.
In the winter of 1804, the explorers built Fort Mandan near those villages. There they met Sacagawea and her husband, a trader, and asked them to come along.
That winter, Sacagawea had a baby boy, Jean Baptiste. She carried him on her back for the whole trip!
A translator changes words into another language. Sacagawea spoke Shoshone, so she could help the explorers talk with the Shoshone.
She knew the land near her first home. She spotted a big rock shaped like a beaver's head, and said her people were close.
The Shoshone leader turned out to be her brother! The Shoshone traded horses to the explorers, so they could cross the Rocky Mountains.
When a boat almost tipped over, Sacagawea calmly grabbed supplies before they floated away.
A woman with a baby showed other nations that the group came in peace, not to fight.
Today, Sacagawea is on a gold-colored dollar coin.
Your turn! Sort them. Who did it: Lewis and Clark, or Sacagawea?
Try it with a grown-up! Learn to say hello in another language. A translator knows many words like that!

Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:

SS1H1.a — Identify the contributions made by these figures: Benjamin Franklin (inventor/author/ statesman), Thomas Jefferson (Declaration of Independence), Meriwether Lewis and William Clark with Sacagawea (exploration), Theodore Roosevelt (National Parks and the environment), George Washington Carver (science), and Ruby Bridges (civil rights).
SS1G1.b — American frontier (Lewis & Clark and Sacagawea)