Native American Homes

Last week we built Native American homes to help us learn more about the different regions of Native Americans. Here are some pictures and what some students had to say about building the homes:

Eastern Woodlands-Longhouse

Plains- Teepee and Earthlodge

We are the plain people  and we built tepees and earth loge. And we built a tepee made out  of couth sticks sand clay . The first thing we did was we put the clay down  on the paper and put the sticks on the paper so it will and hold it up. And we put clay around the tepee so it will keep the sticks from falling down. Then we panted the tepee so it will look like it has fur on it.

Then we did the Earth Loge and it took a long time so then we started off with the fence it took along time to  build the fence a bunch of sticks so then we put tape on fence to hold it up. Then we some plates  to make a dome shape .And then we had to put clay down so it will stick down to the plates  then we put some sand on it because it had sand on it.
By: Kyle

Great Basin- Hogan

My group  Built the Hogan.  from the great basin . We used  a little bit of bark. The straw for the chimney and clay. We used it for fire, spares ,and smoke, 2 little ponds, blood  (from the bear that they hunted),2 bushes. We used tooth picks. the  men with the guns. We used sand and we covered it with play dough. We built spares and berries.   
By: Edward and Nate

Pacific Northwest- Plankhouse

Southwest- Pueblo

Building a Land Bridge

To help understand how the first people migrated to our continent, today we built our own model of the Land Bridge Theory. First we made salt dough by measuring out and mixing together flour, salt, and water. Then we molded the dough into two continents, North America and Asia, with a land bridge connecting them in between. We poured in water so that the Land Bridge was still exposed, like it was during the Ice Age, and added ice cubes to represent our glaciers. Throughout the day we watched as the glaciers melted like they did when the Ice Age ended. As the glaciers melted, the water level rose and covered the Land Bridge so that it was no longer exposed and Native Americans could no longer cross it. 

This project was messy, but it sure was fun!!

Before the glaciers melted. 

After the glaciers melted. The Ice Age is over- hooray!

Native American Homes

To follow up on yesterday's blog, here are our finished homes! We are so proud of our hard work! Don't they look great?!

Eastern Woodlands- Chickee

 Great Basin- Hogan

 Plains- Tepee and Earth Lodge

 Southwest- Pueblo

Pacific Northwest- Plankhouse

A Terrific Tuesday

Well, today was quite an eventful day to start our week off! This morning we had a very special visitor... Dr. Patterson! Our principal came to visit us this morning to read us a story called The Day the Crayons Quit. This very entertaining story taught students the importance of being creative and becoming problem solvers, two very important skills to have in fourth grade! The kids really enjoyed our visit with Dr. Patterson and it was great to them interacting with someone who is so important in our school! Below are some pictures of Dr. Patterson reading aloud to the students: 

We ended our day today by getting hands-on with our social studies content! Students got to build a home from our five Native American cultural regions. The students worked very hard and the homes turned out GREAT! I am very impressed with the students' hard work and creativity! Thank you SO much to everyone who donated materials for this fun activity! I am very proud of the students; they worked cooperatively and efficiently the entire time. I heard many positive comments exchanged between groups such as, "Wow, that looks good!" or "You guys are doing a great job!" My students continue to impress me with their willingness to go above and beyond not only academically and behaviorally, but also in terms of their character! What sweet students I have! Below are some pictures of the students in action. Pictures of our finished products will be coming soon!