2nd & 3rd Grade // Becoming Experts on Native American Cultures

Over the past few months, 2nd and 3rd grade crews have been focusing on the true founders of North America: Native Americans. Through our expedition, our students are expanding their knowledge on the culture, importance and history of all Native Americans. We had a lot of fun making totem poles and wrote a paragraph describing how it represented us. We were surprised to find out that only Northwest tribes were the only tribes to create totem poles.

Also, thanks to our amazing art teacher, Beth Maddens, we were able to take a guided tour to the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) Museum to see actual art and artifacts from Native American history.

We are now focusing more specifically on the Sioux Tribe. We are reading TONS of books we got from libraries all over Michigan and learning about the Sitting Bull, why buffalo and teepees were so important to the tribe and how connected they felt to the natural world. We showed our learning about the Sioux Tribe through informative paragraphs about different aspects of it, such as housing, tribe roles, tools/products and hunting. We are also learning about the current day Sioux Tribe and how the Dakota Access Pipeline is affecting them. We are starting and can’t wait to publish our hardback book, which will include a letter and illustration from each student to the companies funding the Dakota Access Pipeline persuading them to stop their financial contributions. We are sending a few of these books out to the companies, local libraries and schools. If you would like a copy (they’re around $20), please don’t hesitate to reach out. ☺