Foods of the Eastern Woodlands

LESSON THREE

The best advice I received when I began teaching about the native people of the Eastern Woodlands, was to start by covering their basic needs.  Approaching the material this way, made it considerably more manageable. 

So after learning about traditional Eastern Woodland shelters and the resources used to build them, I moved on to discussing what foods were available.   Food is one of my favorite things to talk about, so this was fun from the start.  But the lesson ended even better than it began, with a taste of popcorn dipped in maple syrup!  

To begin, we learned about 'gathering' - what people would have gathered from the environment to eat and that this was often one of the responsibilities children would have. caption

Then we brainstormed names of animals that live in this environment that might have been hunted.  My favorite part of this lesson is when we talk about the American Indian belief that all things in nature have a spirit.  People would thank the animal for giving its life for their needs.

I use these illustrations to show how early American Indians used the materials in their environment to create tools for hunting.  While gruesome, the kids appreciated that the turkey snare and the "death fall" allowed people to hunt for food with minimal harm to themselves.  
These illustration come from a book called: The New England Indians (C. Keith Wilbur)

The Three Sisters were a major staple of the Native Americans.   Planting fields in this manner helped yield successful harvests. 

Many foods that the Native American people grew were foreign to the Europeans who arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. 

After talking about the foods people of the woodlands gathered, hunted and grew, the students completed a graphic organizer in the form of a plate - Page 6 in the All Woodland Worksheets packet -  They were tasked with illustrating and labeling foods eaten in each of the three categories.  The plates looked delicious and were a fun way to reinforce the information as well as assess each child's understanding.

We learned that the early Native Americans often ate in the morning and shared a large meal around mid-day.  If they were hungry in between larger meals, there were always pots stewing, dried meat to chew on, or popcorn to pop!

So as my students filled up their plates, I set up my popcorn machine and made a batch of air pop popcorn for the class to share. We were delighted to learn that the early Native American people would cook kernels over the fire, and that it was considered a snack that brought people together.  We put it in dixie cups and sprinkled maple syrup over it for a sweet flavor - similar to the way tribes in the northeast enjoyed it!

Shelters of the Eastern Woodlands

LESSON TWO 

While there may be others, I introduced my students to four different types of shelters that the early people of the Eastern Woodlands built to thrive in their environment.  Wigwams and Longhouses were sturdy shelters for the northeast, protecting people against the harsh winters and utilizing the birch and elm tree forests that grew in the region.  The Wattle & Daub shelters were prominent in the southeast where the warm sun would dry and harden the clay walls of the structure.  In the swampy regions of present-day Florida, the Chickee was constructed by the Seminole people who adapted to the marsh and heat. 

Example:

Ms. Ho: Which of these shelters is a wigwam?

Ede: I think the wigwam is the shelter in the northeast corner!

For this lesson I warmed up with a guessing game - asking kids to match each picture to a name.  Just to reinforce those geography skills a little more, I asked them to use the compass at the top when giving their answers.

To change up my approach, I partnered students up and had them read information about each shelter.  One pair read about the Wigwam and the Longhouses and then completed a venn diagram.  After 15 minutes they would switch with another group who had read about the Chickee and Wattle & Daub structures.  By the end of class, each group had collected concrete information on each of the four shelters.

Make copies of these Shelter Fact Sheets so that students can read the information in partner groups.  I back them onto construction paper and laminate them for future use.  I love visuals, so here are some images:

Create a venn diagram form, or use mine which is the third page of the All Woodlands Worksheets so that students can record the new information.

Tribes of the Eastern Woodlands

LESSON ONE

Because of where our school is located, we start our study of Native America in the Eastern Woodlands.  By beginning in this region we are also able to examine life before the influence of the European settlers. 

Though I face the continual challenge of finding creditable sources, I am grateful that my school does not ask that students work from a text book.  It has encouraged me to create my own visual guide through lessons and to pull and cross-reference information from many sources.  As I have mentioned earlier, I am a great proponent of PowerPoint as tool for the elementary classroom.  While there is other fabulous technology out there, I have found that PowerPoint and a simple projector sufficiently allow me to create an interactive teaching environment. 

For this first lesson, my goal is to establish a sense of where and when we are as we delve into the Eastern Woodlands.  To do so, we look at series of slides:

As we begin our study of the Eastern Woodlands, why do you think some maps might distinguish between the Northeast and the Southeast?  What do you know about these regions today that might impact how the Native American people lived here years ago?

When you picture the Eastern Woodlands, imagine an endless forest, long before buildings and highways and parking lots existed.  Have you ever hiked in a forest like this?  What kind of animals or resources might people have had access to?

We will be exploring the Eastern Woodlands in the 1400s, a hundred years before the first Europeans arrived.  There are a lot of names for the native people of the Americas.  “Indians” was a mistake Christopher Columbus made that stuck.  Most tribes called themselves “the people.” 

At this point, I pass out a blank map of the Eastern Woodlands region and ask students to read the information on the slide to record the location of each tribe.  This introduction, allows students to review and apply their U.S. state geography skills!  The Tribe Location Worksheet is the second form included in this packet - All Eastern Woodlands Worksheets - which I made and use for this unit.

This is a list of 8 of the many tribes of the Eastern Woodlands.  Using your geography knowledge,  identify the area where these tribes lived.
 (Many Native American people still live in these areas today!

When my students are finished, we go through the map together and check our work.

   

Teaching about the Native Americans: How to Start

In December, it was time to move on from geography and into the study of Native American culture and way of life at the start of our nation’s history.  I look forward to this unit every year with a mixture of delight and trepidation.  There are so many awesome opportunities for project-based learning, however, there seem to be an equal number of ways to perpetuate stereotypes.  I have tried hard to fill in the gaps of my own understanding of the earliest Americans, so that I can teach a more balanced view of the past.

I realized quickly in my first year that telling my students we would be studying the Native Americans gave them a false sense that we were studying a people who no longer existed.  So in my second year, I made to sure to begin our unit in the present.  We had just finished studying world geography, and so I asked children if they knew which countries their ancestors were originally from and why they came to the United States.  Even my 3^rd graders whose grandparents and great-grandparents were born here, were able to think about how these relatives lived years ago, and how things about them changed with the times.  Wouldn’t this be similar for the Native American people? 

It was a successful conversation that helped children to think about the place the earliest Americans have in our current history.  It helped them understand that we talk about their past, because it affects all of our pasts as US citizens, but it does not mean that the Native Americans have disappeared or that they live the same way they once did hundreds of years ago. 

From doing my research online and listening to the ideas of other teachers, I went from the present to the very past.  Through PowerPoint, I spoke to my students about the land bridge, how the earliest Americans were nomads who were believed to have followed the wooly mammoth from Asia to North America and how later people perhaps came by sea down the coasts.  Here are some of the slides I used.  Guess which one was their favorite.

We talked about how our world has changed over time, how the continents have moved and how this affected the earliest people.

We talked about how if we look at today's map from a different perspective we see how close Asia and North America truly are.  We have an easier time picturing "beringia" - the land bridge.

We talked about how this land bridge melted and reformed over and over again over time, until eventually it had disappeared.

We talked about how it is believed that the earliest Americans followed their food source - the wooly mammoth.

...But not like this.

And finally, we looked at a map of North America divided by regions in which the earliest Americans settled, and made a list of natural resources the people might have had available to them depending on their location.

So how do you wrap up a lesson that is mostly discussion?!  Sometimes we don't have time for children to fill out comprehension worksheets and sometimes those sheets seem repetitive.  Still, I want to know that my students have followed along.  My tool is the "Roll and Write."  At the end of class, (though sometimes the beginning as a warm up), I ask each table to roll the die once.  Whichever number they land on is the question they must answer.  You can differentiate this day to day! Sometimes I let them work as a group and write their answer on an index card.  Other times they have to answer it individually.  Either way, it is a great way for me to quickly assess what material has really sunk in!  I have a great reward system for those who have the correct answer but I'll save that for another time. 

This is what the "Roll and Write" slide looks like.  I save for the last 5 minutes of class,
or open with it to review a previous lesson.  

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This year I was also able to introduce the unit with a visit from the Redhawk Native American Arts Council’s performing artists.  If you are in the New York area this organization has a wonderful program for children of all ages.  The dance troupe visited our school and spoke about the stereotypes we often have about Native Americans, while getting our students out of their seats for some interactive dances.  Visit http://redhawkcouncil.org/ for more.  

Nations Notebook: World Geography Unit

My own geography teacher was an impressive figure.  He had us select and research 3 countries and turn in a bound report after months of work.  Although I was significantly older at the time than my current students, I knew I had to find a way to adapt his project when it came time for my own classes to apply their knowledge of map features. 

My 3rd graders and I reviewed US maps for weeks, building upon skills taught in 2^nd grade.  As I moved into features of the world map, I used Nations Notebook as an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge, acquire research skills and broaden their appreciation of other cultures and countries. 

Length: 45 minutes    Unit Length: 2 classes per week/4 weeks

All the student guides are here.  Take, tweak, share at will and let me know how it goes! For more detail on how I conducted the project, read below. 

Pre-Research Interview PDF
Nations Notebook Project PDF
Nations Notebook Menus PDF

Lesson 1:

To begin, I taught my students about the 7 continents, the equator, the prime meridian, the hemispheres, and the oceans.  We talked about how borders can change, taking Sudan and Southern Sudan as a current example.  In our previous study of US geography we had discussed the difference between political maps, physical maps, and thematic maps, and now we looked at how these categories apply to world maps as well. 

Lesson 2:

I wasn’t surprised by how little the children knew of world geography…learning the 50 states is tricky enough!  So the point of Nations Notebook wasn’t to memorize facts or locations, but to give students a way to apply their new map knowledge.  In lesson 2, I paired students up and laid out large maps of 6 continents (Antarctica not included).  With their partner, they chose a country based on their own criteria.  Some chose countries they, or a relative, had been to, or one they had heard about on the news.  Others closed their eyes and accepted the choice of a random finger landing. 

In the end 40 different countries were chosen across the 3^rd grade, from Ecuador, to England, to Papua New Guinea. I think it is important to have children reflect on their prior knowledge and actively think of the questions they have before going into their research.  I used the Pre-Research Interview PDF here to get students excited 

Lesson 3 and On:

I am a firm believer in inquiry-based learning and allowing children to formulate their own questions to guide their research.  I will be the first to admit that this project was considerably more structured.  At my previous school, my students were accustomed to inquiry-based assignments and felt comfortable with wonder walls and exploration.  My current kiddos, on the other hand are used to rigor, but grow agitated at the thought of being left to their own devices.  As this was our first research experience of the year, I chose to ease in slowly by making guided question packets for each group to use with different resources.

The first resource was a world map.  Students were able to use our class set of world map placemats to figure out their chosen country’s continent, hemisphere, neighbors, and/or bordering oceans. 

The second resource was the National Geographic Kids World Atlas. We were fortunate to have a class set in the library, but you can explore it online at this site.  Using the atlas was important.  We talked about features of non-fiction books and learned interesting facts about the geographic regions where our countries were located. 

Our third, and most important resource, was www.culturegrams.com.  I cannot speak highly enough about this database.  If your school is willing to purchase an account it is an excellent tool for any teacher.  Students were able to use the kids edition to explore different aspects of their country; its economy, government, landscape, climate, population, languages, schools, foods, and even hear about daily life from actual interviews. 

Final Project:

When I began Nations Notebook, I imagined that each partnership would present their findings through a poster.  I anticipated needing two class periods in which students could paraphrase and transfer facts onto index cards and add their visuals.  However, school was canceled after Hurricane Sandy hit, and in that time I was fortunate enough to attend a Teach21 workshop on Project-Based Learning.  One of the ideas I took away was the concept of creating a menu of options.  Try this book for more ideas: Differentiating with Menus.  Instead of limiting my students to a poster, I made it one of six options.  See the others here: Nations Notebook Menus PDF

I was amazed by how my students responded to the choice!  Suddenly groups were asking to stay indoors for recess to construct hanging mobiles, or take their project folders home to write their interview questions.  My class came alive and it was an absolute pleasure to observe.  The projects are displayed in the hallway and I set aside class-time to listen to each group present.

While Nations Notebook took longer than I initially anticipated, in the end my students acquired research skills, practiced their public speaking, put together an informative project that reflected their interest and creativity, learned about other countries and cultures in a meaningful way, and most importantly, applied their map skills.  It was a success and I cannot wait to repeat it!

Brochure for Belgium

Postcards from Sudan

An Interview with the President of South Korea

Mobiles for Australia, Chad, Thailand and Ethiopia

Namibia Poster

Brazil and Greece Posters

Columbia Poster