Interested in testing some fourth-grade lessons?

 Late last February, I finished a draft of the third unit in our fourth grade curriculum. (The first unit, Montana Today: A Geographic Study, and the second unit, Montana's First Peoples, are available to download from our website.)

I reached out and lined up teachers to test the unit and then--well, you know what happened. So, I'm going to try again. If you teach fourth grade and are interested in testing one or more of these lessons, read on. 

Coming to Montana investigates some of the push-pull factors that brought people to the state: European settlement in the east that pushed tribes westward, the fur trade, Montana's mineral and timber wealth, and its rich grasslands.  (Still to come is a unit that will focus on homesteading, allotment, boarding schools, and twentieth-century immigration). 

Coming to Montana is broken into 7 parts:

• Part 1: Should I Stay or Should I Go? (1-2 days)
• Part 2: Montana's First Peoples (1-2 days)
• Part 3: The Next Big Pull Factor: Precious Metals (contains 4 separate lessons, 5-6 days to do all 4)
• Part 4: Ranching (contains two separate lessons, 4 days to do both)
• Part 5: Logging (2 days)
• Part 6: the Shrinking Reservation (1-2 days)
• Part 7: Wrap-up (1 day, but you need to have done at least a few of the other lessons for this)

It incorporates some previously published lesson plans:

• "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and "No Smoking: A History Mystery," Lessons 3 and from the Coming to Montana: Immigrants from around the World footlocker
• Who Are the Métis?*
• a streamlined version of "The Rest of the Story" (from Montana's Charlie Russell)*
• "What Would You Bring?" Emigrant Families on Montana's Gold Rush Frontier*, and
• "Mining Muffin Reclamation" (from the Gold, Silver, and Coal Oh My! footlocker)

But it also has material created specifically for this unit, including

• a guided research project on life for cowboys on the ranching frontier using excerpts from Teddy Blue Abbott's reminiscence, We Pointed Them North and historical photographs from our collection*;
• An examination of census information to discover who lived in logging camps*; 
• a math-based lesson on the Indian land loss*; and
• a card-game lesson on cause and effect.

Are you interested in trying this unit out with your fourth-grade class and providing feedback? I'm should be able to have material to you by the end of February. The entire unit should take 15-20 days but I'd be happy to test individual pieces as well.

Email me if you are interested, and I'll send you more information.

*I think these can be adapted for distance learning--but some of the content is challenging so students may need more scaffolding than distance learning allows; you'll need to make that determination yourself.

P.S. My last email advertised Colin Calloway's talk, The Great Smallpox Pandemic of 1779-1784 but I forgot to include the time and date! It is today (Thursday, September 24) at 6:30 p.m. Hope you can join us.