Week 1 Inquiry

Well, this week went really well as far as introducing my Pilgrims and Native American Unit. I decided to investigate the Native American groups with my class first, and that is where we started. I also pulled a story from the second volume of our reading text called "The Great Ball Game", that is a Muskogee Tribe Folktale about a lacrosse type game between birds and animals. (By the way, I love teaching a thematic unit this way, I was a little concerned with the difficulty of the story since it would usually be taught in the spring, but I really front loaded the vocab and high frequency words to prepare them for the text). The animals won, and the penalty was that the birds must leave for half the year. That is how they explained bird migration. It is actually a great story, and we will continue with it next week.

I felt as though most of the students were engaged in the lesson, but there were one or two of the students that became antsy after about 20 minutes. This is usual behavior for a few individuals, but I put a lot of enthusiasm into this unit because it is my favorite, so most of the students were actively engaged, asking questions and answering others. I put enthusiasm into my teaching anyway, but I am very partial to Social Studies, so it makes it a little easier:)

We watched KET United Streaming videos on the first two tribes mentioned and their eyes were glued to the Smartboard! They were so engaged in the video, fascinated on how these groups of Indians lived their daily lives. I really felt that the technology was a powerful component to the information I was presenting. They were introduced to the Eastern Woodland Indians and the Great Plains Indians. Next week we will continue on with learning about the Southwest, California and Coastal groups. We have been watching PowerPoint presentations all year, and on Friday I took the kids into the computer lab and they played around with making their own slide shows, which will go into week 2 because the kids will eventually be making their own slides.

Next week the kids will be learning more about these Indian tribes and they will be broken into groups to research information for their slide show. I am planning on taping myself teaching in the computer lab when the kids make their slides; but we still have a lot of work to do this week first to prepare! I look forward to reading on how all of you are doing on your inquiry plans:)