The goal is to begin the process of helping students visualize the Native American culture as a very important part of their everyday existence.

Objectives:

Students will be able to identify at least one similarity and at least one difference in the following categories: celebrations, daily activities, values and beliefs, other.

Materials:

• overhead projector or chalkboard
• 2 or 3 sets of the following titles from the series We Are Still Here - Native Americans Today
  1. Songs from the Loom: Navajo
  2. Drumbeat..Heartbeat: Powwow
  3. Four Seasons of Corn: Winnebago
  4. Clambake: A Wampanoag Tradition
  5. Kinaalda: A Navajo Girl Grows Up
  6. Ininatig’s Gift of Sugar: Ojibway
  7. Shannon: Ojibway Dancer
  8. Children of Clay: Pueblo Potters
  9. Sacred Harvest: Ojibway Wild Rice

Plan:

1. To determine what the students already know prior to instruction, the teacher will ask the students to tell her what they know about the Native American culture. While the students are telling the teacher these things, the teacher will write them down on the board.
2. After that, the teacher will ask the students to define what a value and what a belief is. The teacher will write their definitions on the board, because at this stage there is no right or wrong answer at that point, the teacher is just trying to get a feel of what the children already know.
3. Finally, the teacher will then proceed to define the terms, values and beliefs, using an elementary definition. After this, the class will proceed on to the lesson.

1. Divide students into cooperative groups and give each group several books from the selection stated above in the list of materials.
2. Ask students to look through the pictures in the books and, as a group, make a list of the characteristics of the children in the pictures and the activities in which they are engaged.
3. Ask them to find short passages in the text that describes an everyday activity of a Native American child or his/her family.
4. As a whole group, we will make a composite list on the board or the overhead. Allow the groups to take turns reading to others or reporting the descriptions of family activities.
5. Go through the list and look for categories. (For example: family meals, playing games, going to school, wearing blue jeans, wearing athletic shoes, doing chores, various colors or hair or skin, wearing a ponytail, worshipping, joining in a celebration, wearing regalia for a traditional ceremony.)

1. Discuss “values” and “beliefs”. What do the pictures tell us about things that people consider important? (For example: families, caring, working hard, health and recreation, sharing membership in a family or tribe, being an American, etc.)
2. Teacher assigns groups to deople consider important? (For example: families, caring, working hard, health and recreation, sharing membership in a family or tribe, being an American, etc.)
3. Teacher assigns groups to d