Fourth Grade Curriculum Is Taking Shape

Longtime readers will know that we have slowly (too slowly!) been working to create a Montana history curriculum for upper elementary students.

I just posted Coming to Montana, so the first three units of our new fourth grade curriculum are now available to download from our site.

Unit One, Montana Today: A Geographical Study focuses on Montana geography and contemporary Montana, with activities that ask students to "identify and label the tribes in Montana ... and [their] current locations" and "investigate the physical, political, and cultural characteristics of places, regions, and people in Montana" (two of the new Montana Social Studies standards that go into effect July 1).

Unit 2, Montana's First Peoples starts 12,000 years ago and ends circa 1820. It includes activities to help students identify Montana tribes' indigenous territories and "understand tribes in Montana have their own unique histories" (also part of the new standards.) 

Coming to Montana looks at the pull factors that brought people to Montana in the nineteenth century:

• the fur trade
• the discoveries of gold, silver, and copper
• good grass for cattle (and open rangeland)
• timber and a market for that timber created by mining companies and railroads

It also looks at some of the consequences of settlement, from shrinking reservations to the environmental impacts of mining. As such it will help students be able to "explain how Montana has changed over time given its cultural diversity and how this history impacts the present" and to "identify events and policies that have impacted and been influenced by tribes in Montana"--again expectations set by the new social studies standards. 

Coming to Montana was made much better by the teachers who volunteered to test the material and provide feedback. Thank you all (and your students too)!  

Which brings me to my ask: I am still looking for teachers to test the fourth and final unit (for those of you who have already volunteered, thank you!) If you teach Montana history in fourth grade, consider helping us test Montana in the Twentieth Century, which includes lessons on 

• homesteading
• Indian boarding schools and allotment
• post-1920 immigration to Montana (with a focus on Latino, Hutterite, and Hmong communities)
• the 1972 Constitution
• the Seven Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians
• amazing Montanans (as a culminating lesson)

The lessons integrate ELA (from close reading and fluency practice to writing poetry) and aligned to the Essential Understandings regarding Montana Indians and the new Montana Social Studies Standards, particularly: 

• identifying events and policies that have impacted and been influenced by tribes in Montana;
• explaining how Montana has changed over time given its cultural diversity and how this history impacts the present; 
• describing how historical accounts are impacted by individual perspectives, and
• identifying key foundational documents in Montana's government.

Even though it is the fourth unit of the curriculum, the material stands alone, so you can test any or all of these lessons without having done the earlier units. If you are interested in testing Montana in the Twentieth Century, or even just a lesson or two in January or February, please email me!