November is National American Indian Heritage Month and the first grade classes are learning about Native American culture and history through a visit to the Museum of Native American History and an Arts Integration project.
The amazing first grade teachers coordinated the opportunity to visit the Museum during their social studies lessons on Native Americans. Mr. Jones, Director of Arts Integration, visited the first grade classes on Monday to provide an overview of Native American culture and prepare the students for their trip to the Museum. The first grade visited the Museum on Tuesday and learned about the daily life, customs and games from specific tribal communities. One of the artifacts the students studied at the Museum was the Lone Dog Winer Count (Winter Counts are pictorial calendars or histories where tribal records and events were recorded by Native Americans in North America. Lone Dog's Winter Count records 70 years of memorable events for the Lakota Sioux).
After their visit the students participated in an arts integration project in which each class created a Winter Count of their own. However, instead of each glyph representing a specific year each student created a picture to represent an important event in 2019. Each student symbol was arranged in a spiral as traditional Winter Counts to tell their story.
Learn more and visit the Museum of Native American History’s website https://www.monah.us/
