| School:
West Iron County Elementary School-75 Students |
| Teachers:
Margaret Scheffer, Sandra Holmes,
Mavis Stafford, Amanda Symmonds |
| Theme
for the Lesson Week: "Families and Schools of the Past" |
| Big
Culture Lesson Description: The students will listen to
and discuss historical fiction and biographies from the early
American time period representative of the cultures of Native
Americans and colonists. Through a variety of activities, including
but not limited to role-play, drawings, writing stories, and
dress up, the students will re-create events from the life of
these historical characters. |
Essential
Questions:
|
Who were Michigan's first people? |
| How
did the Native Americans impact pioneer life? |
| How
was life different then from today? |
|
| Initiating
Activities: Provide common household objects used in the
past that students may not be able to identify such as a drop
spindle, butter paddle, tin candle sconce, etc. Encourage predictions
as to the items' uses. Use these items as a springboard to compare
and contrast life of long ago with life as we know it today. |
| Student
Activities: Establish Native Americans as Michigan's first
people through legends and tribal areas on maps. Identify key
elements of Native American life through pictures and stories.
Read historical fiction depicting customs and way of life of
pioneers or Native Americans. The students will construct a
yarn doll or clothespin doll and dress it as a pioneer or Native
American. An extending activity will be naming the doll and
writing (or dictating) a story about an event in that "person's"
life or day. Students make "paper quilts" in art class. |
| Culminating
Activities: Resource people from the Iron County Museum
and local community demonstrate early American and Native skills,
using the objects first introduced to the students in the initiating
activities. A Folk Fair is held with demonstrations of spinning,
weaving, storytelling, leather working, old-time music/singing,
and ice-cream making. "Paper quilts" made in art class
are exhibited in the May WIC Student Art Show held at the Museum.
Two half-day visits to the Iron County Museum, approximately
20 students each day. Students are divided into 4 groups of
8-10 with a teacher and a parent supervising each group. Groups
rotating through sectional presentations by Museum docents:
Native American lore-Docent reads the story, The Legend
of Mackinac Island (large mural on ceiling beam shows
Ojibway migration route); Quilter tells a story about an early
American lady who made quilts (small quilt on frame for viewing
and reference); students "attend class" in a one-room
schoolhouse, and old-time children's songs and singing games
are learned. |
| Assessment:
Given a historical story, students will recount the experiences
of that person's life. Using their homemade doll as a prompt,
children tell a story of a pioneer or Native American child's
day. Test on early Native American life. |
| Criteria
for evaluating student projects/performances: Rubric for
writing/story-telling activity will evaluate student's understanding
of the comparison of life in the past to life as she/he knows
it today. The students will correctly match pioneer household
objects with contemporary objects used to achieve similar results
(i.e. candle to light bulb). Students will achieve a passing
grade on tests used to evaluate student learning. |
Community
Resource Contact Information: Contact Person:
Audrey
Ridolphi, Project Director
1001 Seldon Road Apartment #E
Iron River, MI 49935
906-265-2707 audreyr@up.net |
|
Recommended
Resources :
Silver-Burdett
and Ginn social studies textbook
Michigan's First People (coloring book for pictures key
elements of Native American life).
Theme related trade books.
Local resource people. |
|
Connection
to Social Studies Content Strands:
Strand
1, Content standard 2, benchmarks 1 and 2.
Strand 1, Content standard 3, benchmark 1 |
|
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