Best of, Elementary Edition

Every spring, I ask folks to share their favorite Montana history of IEFA lesson, the one they would absolutely do again. Here are the responses from elementary teachers with some notes from me, in brackets.

• Blackfeet Research Project:  Students research a cultural aspect about the Blackfeet Tribe.  They need 2 resources, 6 main facts and citing sources, a photograph and then they write a summary about what they learned.  They display their information on a poster board.-- Sara White, Shelby, grade 3
• Reserving the footlocker from the Montana Historical Society entitled Montana Indian Story Lit Kit is a highlight in my classroom every year.  The students are intrigued by the stories and the anticipation of having to wait for winter to come to get the trunk is exciting for the students.  Most of the stories are at the third grade readability level and the others make for a great class read aloud. [You can see the footlocker user guide here. You can reserve it here.]
• We got the Montana place names trunk and it was SO GOOD! It engaged my fourth graders for three class periods, learning all about Montana and the history of all the little towns using the A-Z road trip lesson.—Christine Ayers, Linderman Elementary, Grade 4 [Find the lesson plan here. Reserve the footlocker here.]
• Rewriting the state song or other song.  Making new lyrics to go with an event in MT history. This is an adaptation to the state song lesson I previewed for you. –Jackie McCann, Florence Elementary, Grade 4 [We created this lesson plan as part of our revision of our State Symbols footlocker, which will be ready to circulate very soon. Stay tuned for more on this! Meanwhile, here's a link to information on how to write songs with your students for the non-musical that we borrowed heavily from in creating the lesson plan.] 
• The Art of Storytelling, Barb Sackman, Terry Schools, Grade 1 [Several people talked about doing activities from The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives. That curriculum is available online, but we also donated packets with beautiful art prints to every public school library in Montana. And, I'm pleased to announce that we are reprinting the packet. Stay tuned for information on how to get a copy for your classroom!] 
• Montana's Charlie Russell [This is another packet of beautiful prints and interesting K-12 ELA, Social Studies, and Art lesson plans that we created and distributed to every public school library in the state and to many individual teachers. If your library doesn't have a copy, you can still access the material online.] 
• My MT history project in conjunction with the Montana's State Symbols footlocker and the Crow Astronomy Trunk, which I ordered through Chief Plenty Coups State Park. The engagement factor greatly increase with both trunks. Students loved getting to hold items we can’t find in our area and see real and realistic models of our state symbols. The Crow Astronomy trunk items also allowed me to have the perfect setting to talk about astronomy!—April Wills, Bainville School, Grade 2 [I've talked to April and she has her students complete an amazing local history project with their high school buddies. She's happy to share more information on how she does that.]
• We did state history this year. While we didn’t get actual footlockers, we did some of the activities from them that are available online and my 4th grader LOVED the state symbols activities. She also really loved the “design your own winter count” activity.—Homeschool parent, Grade 4 [All of our hands-on history footlockers have User Guides that are chock full with lesson plans and other resources, many of which can be done without ordering the footlockers. You can download the user guides here.]
• Because of an IEFA class I took, I discovered ALL the IEFA resources already in our library! I will be using some of those next year. Shelly Willmore, Roy Public Schools [OPI has donated SO MUCH GREAT MATERIAL to schools! Follow Shelly's lead and check out your library's collection. Also check out the Indian Education division's web site for online lesson plans and resources.]
• I used the state newspaper link so kids could read about past events in Montana and the country. I also will continue to use the A-Z towns as it is so fun for kids to discover their state. [I LOVE historic newspapers! Here are some hints on how to use them in your classroom.]

Stay tuned for middle school and high school teachers' recommendations.

P.S. Don't forget: The deadline to apply for the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation Scholarship to attend the Montana History Conference is September 9, 2018. Learn more about the September 27-29 Billings Conference and the scholarship information here.