1. Life in New York City Is full of dread and fuss Our dreams are waiting way out west There's room for all of us. The streets are paved with nuggets All of the purest gold And soon we'll all be millionaires. Boy, have I been told. No garbage and no landlords Fouling up the air. No crooks or politicians to strip our cupboards bare. We'll ride the roaring rivers turn wilderness to towns our dreams will take us up and up and never let us down, oh way out west there's room for our dreaming. There's wide open spaces to see. Way out west the sun's always beaming we'll be everything we can be. The nights are filled with dancing lasting till the day. Days are filled with singing work is just like play. We'll banjo! We'll fiddle! We'll guitar! We'll spoon! And everywhere we go, we're gonna play this rousing tune!
'Cause way out west we'll build our new nation we'll grow all the way to the sky, way out west. There's all of creation we're new and we'll never say die, way out west we'll build our new nation we'll grow all the way to the sky way out west there's all of creation we're new and we'll never say die
Westward Expansion
Watch the video and read the lyrics – why did the mice want to move out West?

2. Why did Westward Expansion happen in the 19th Century??
Reasons people wanted to go West
Reasons people were forced to go West
Sort the cards into reasons that people wanted to go and reasons that forced them.
Ext: Decide which were the most important reasons and write a P.E.E paragraph to explain why this was important.
A combination of push and pull factors caused this mass migration. The push factors were those that forced the immigrants to leave their homeland while the pull factors were those that attracted them to the United States.

3. In 1803 the US government bought a huge area of land in the middle of the USA from France, they needed people to settle this Louisiana purchase area.
A Law was passed in 1862, the Homestead Act gave anyone who settled unoccupied land the right to own it if they lived there for 5 years.
Native Americans were forced off their land into reservations during the expansion into the West
Gold was discovered in California in 1848.
There were not many rules, people could do what they wanted in the West, many made their names as gunslingers and thieves like Jesse James.
Between 1800 and 1900 the population of the USA increased from 5 million to 76 million.
The first transcontinental (railway across America) opened in 1869.
The first transcontinental telegraph system (early telephone) was opened in 1861.
Politicians and many people believed it was the goal of Americans to settle across the continent, they called this their MANIFEST DESTINY
In 1804 two men, Lewis and Clark explored a new trail that helped to make settling in the West easier.
The Pony express in the 1860s was another trail opened up across the West, this made it easier to communicate.
Wagon trains – organised groups of settlers with gunslingers as protection and covered wagons made it easier to settle.

4. Play through the animation
Go to the site:
Play through the animation
Create a doc or table to explain what the changes are that occurred and the effects that may have resulted.
Extend yourself and research deeper into these changes.

5. Inferring from a song – Why did the settlers move out West?
What can you infer from the source about the move out West?
What does it not tell us?
Do you think everyone was happy when the settlers got Elbow room? Why not – is this a RELIABLE source?