Lesson Plans


Rose Honey’s “Discovering Our Relationship with Water” was designed with the following lesson plans:

Each lesson plan below incorporates an Honoring Tribal Legacies theme with a description of how water is focused on through each lesson’s activities. The six lesson plan themes and descriptions are as follows:

1. Connections                                                                                                                                           The Water in Our Community

2. Balance                                                                                                                                                    Sinking and Floating

3. Transformation                                                                                                                                    Gas, Liquid, and Solid

4. Cycles                                                                                                                                                 The Movement of Water

5. Reciprocity                                                                                                                                       Happy and Healthy Water

6. Relationships                                                                                                                                  Plants, Animals, and Water

A. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

While numerous learning objectives and learning modalities are included and achievable in each lesson, the most significant learning objectives are listed in this section.

B. LESSON PLAN DESCRIPTION

An entry from the Lewis and Clark journals introduces the themed activities, followed by background information for the activities in each lesson plan. These descriptions provide teachers with some contextual information related to HTL, the Corps of Discovery, and the scientific experiments, and allow them to share and adjust this information according to their students.

C. MATERIALS

Basic materials needed for each activity are listed here.

D. CIRCLE TIME

Circle time is a time at the beginning of each day to sit down with the students and experience an activity with them to introduce the week’s topic. During this time, you can look at the lesson-plans-along-the-trail-map in order to talk about Lewis and Clark’s journey and the tribes who lived along the trail. This section will sometimes include audio, video, and a book list of relevant books to share with the students.

Books to Read

These suggested books align with the topics and themes presented in each learning episode. Many of them have stories with Indigenous characters. The books here may be relevant for multiple learning episodes, so keeping content in mind and re-reading stories will reinforce learning as you proceed with your students through the curriculum. Some of these books are easily accessible for free online (links provided) or for purchase on websites such as Amazon.com – but don’t forget to check your local library. Books are referenced in each learning episode, and downloadable Book List includes all of the books listed in this curriculum.

E. ACTIVITIES

Each activity begins with a research question that will be explored in the activity. Activity explanations include differentiated instruction with suggestions for both above standards and emerging learners.

Multi-level instruction ensures that different age groups of children as well as different learning levels are addressed within each activity, in the hopes that teachers will teach to ability instead of teaching to the age of the students within their classrooms.

F. SUGGESTED FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

This section describes various ways to assess the learning that is taking place in the classroom. It might be a simple question during snack time, or a game or activity that demonstrates student conceptual understanding. The purpose of these formative assessment activities is to reveal the direction students are going in with the lesson. They are meant to help answer the question that CHiXapkaid likes to ask, “Are we all riding in the same canoe?” Formative assessment is also meant to inform educators of the places in their lesson where they might want to put more emphasis, and what concepts and activities could be repeated before moving forward.

G. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES

This section lists the sources used to get information for lesson activities and information related to child development and teaching activities and concepts.