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. Read on for the responses from high school teachers with some notes from me, in brackets. 

April Wills, second grade teacher, Bainville: Following the Trail: We read Seaman’s Journal in class two pages at a time. Because this is a journal we could chronologically timeline events. So we talked about each place in depth, picked out important details from each stop from the text and images. This is what we did for the entire book and in the end each student had their own timeline from the story. My students liked being able to hear the story from a “dog’s perspective”. We had many conversations where they could formulate their own opinions and debate, think -pair-share, and collaborate with library media. This activity tied in multiple standards and they loved it! [Seaman naturally takes Lewis and Clark's perspective when it comes to Indians, especially the Sicanju Lakota. It might be interesting to pair the book with Bad River Boys: A Meeting of the Lakota Sioux with Lewis and Clark.]

Helena elementary school librarian Marla Unruh: I am developing a website to teach Lewis and Clark in - I hope - an innovative way. I am trying to make it personal for 4th and 5th graders. It is unfinished at this time, and I am still doing personal research. I wanted to know why the tribal people referred to L&C's men as "long knives," and that led to a little reading on the espontoon and why Lewis favored it. I created a podcast in which I read aloud from James Willard Schultz's Bird Woman for one of my topics. I am presenting the Indian point of view (third-hand, I know.) I really wonder if I would have done all this if we had not gone to remote learning.  

Susan Seastrand, grades 3-5, Billings: IEFA Model Teaching Unit on Jim Thorpe's Bright Path 

Ron Buck: My favorite lesson is The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives. 

Anonymous: 

• The study of stereotyping to lead into who are the Salish.
• Learning about the winter count and having the student create their own. [This is part of The Art of Storytelling unit, mentioned above.]
• Next year, I found a book called Fry Bread by Kevin Maillard at Costco yesterday and we are going to make our own fry bread after learning about it.
• I used the book about children growing up in Montana's early mining camps to teach history and writing. [This teacher might be referring to Girl from the Gulches: The Story of Mary Ronan. We have posted the first part of the book as a PDF for free download and also created a study guide with lesson plans.]
• We love the Montana A to Z lesson. [This is a perennial favorite.]

Judith Vincent, Shields Valley, k-2: As part of a Montana unit I present each year, my students spend 1 week (or more depending on their engagement & interest) learning about the many uses of the buffalo by Native American tribes. This project incorporates outside resources including learning trunks from several museums, local artifacts & speakers. Students love the hands on activities & personal connection to their state. [She adapts MHS footlockers, including state symbols. Sadly, we've temporarily suspended our footlocker program because of COVID. However, User Guides (some of which include links to PowerPoints with historical images) are available for free download at our website.]

Jennifer Ogden: Art teacher, Victor:  “I enjoyed designing a lesson for 5th grade about Charlie Russell's Guardian Gnome figures. I made beeswax clay and sent cakes of it home to students sheltering in place. The malleable wax is for modeling faces. The rest of the figure is mostly made from natural materials students find at home the way Charlie and his guests scoured the grounds around Bull Head Lodge at Glacier to make theirs. I have been using the food distribution pipeline along our school bus route to deliver art kits and my lesson is posted for them on Google Classroom. I want to teach it in the real classroom some day and have the kids make the clay at school. I was inspired by a photo of CMR modeling beeswax for a group of "dudes" stopped at Browning in 1915.” 

Want more? Stay tuned for the Middle and High School Editions in upcoming weeks and join us on September 15 from 4:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m for Introduction to Montana History Resources. Register (and provide feedback to help shape the session) here.