Who were the American Indians before Columbus?
Lesson #: 7
Grade: 4th
Subject Area: Social Studies
Context
Materials
Introduction/Investment
So we now know that Columbus came in 1492 and ushered in the era of European settlers throughout America. The American Indian tribes before Columbus were very different from the way they are now, but also, they have some similarities.
In a think-pair-share, find a partner and come up with two things that you think might be the same and two things that might be different.
With this, hopefully you can get the students engaged and also talk about different aspects of culture that weren’t touched on in the earlier lessons.
Content
For this, a general understanding on what the different tribes of Wisconsin had. Some of the key characteristics would be:
Whole-Class Activity
This is the part in which you let the answers that the students’ share dictate the way in which the lesson goes. For the first half of the lesson, I would try to push the students to thinking about the ways in which the American Indians of today live and how AI of yesteryear lived. By planning on this, I will offer the students a visual representation of the differences
For these visual representations, one picture would be of a tradition (old) AI dwelling from Wisconsin and the other would be a picture of a contemporary dwelling (which would be any house).
The hope for this is two-fold: one, the students see that there has been changes and we as a class can talk about this but also it helps to solidify the idea that AI are alive and kicking and are creating history not just a page in the history book.
Practice
For the practice, have the students write down one thing that they learned that they found interesting and why.
This is a simple task to gauge their understanding and also see if the lesson needs to be extended.
Assessment
Assessment occurs throughout this lesson very informally based on the circulation of the teacher and then more formally with the writer’s response that they complete during their practice time.
Grade: 4th
Subject Area: Social Studies
Context
Materials
- Pictures of Contemporary and Historic American Indians
Introduction/Investment
So we now know that Columbus came in 1492 and ushered in the era of European settlers throughout America. The American Indian tribes before Columbus were very different from the way they are now, but also, they have some similarities.
In a think-pair-share, find a partner and come up with two things that you think might be the same and two things that might be different.
With this, hopefully you can get the students engaged and also talk about different aspects of culture that weren’t touched on in the earlier lessons.
Content
For this, a general understanding on what the different tribes of Wisconsin had. Some of the key characteristics would be:
- Similar musical and artistic traditions
- Same oral traditions and stories (Which will tie into the Language Arts part of the unit)
- Day-to-day dress is different.
- Size of their land
- Interactions with their food sources
Whole-Class Activity
This is the part in which you let the answers that the students’ share dictate the way in which the lesson goes. For the first half of the lesson, I would try to push the students to thinking about the ways in which the American Indians of today live and how AI of yesteryear lived. By planning on this, I will offer the students a visual representation of the differences
For these visual representations, one picture would be of a tradition (old) AI dwelling from Wisconsin and the other would be a picture of a contemporary dwelling (which would be any house).
The hope for this is two-fold: one, the students see that there has been changes and we as a class can talk about this but also it helps to solidify the idea that AI are alive and kicking and are creating history not just a page in the history book.
Practice
For the practice, have the students write down one thing that they learned that they found interesting and why.
This is a simple task to gauge their understanding and also see if the lesson needs to be extended.
Assessment
Assessment occurs throughout this lesson very informally based on the circulation of the teacher and then more formally with the writer’s response that they complete during their practice time.
