Coyote

Last week was such a great week.  I loved all the work we did with stars in Native American stories.  At the end of the week the students worked hard on a claim connecting the facts we had learned about stars to the stories that we read.

This week I want to step away from the sky and get back to the earth.  We are going to look at an animal that is part of the earth...the coyote.  All week long we are going to study how the coyote is portrayed in Native American stories.  

We got our first glimpse of coyote last week when we read the story How the Stars Fell into the Sky.

Hopefully the class will enjoy the stories we read this week, but I also hope they see the characteristics that coyote has in many of the stories that we read this week.  

We are also continuing to learn about the first groups of people in Ohio.  We have just started to learn about the Archaic Indians.  In comparing this group with the Paleo-Indians we have already noticed many changes that Ohio and the people of Ohio made to survive.

As we read about the Archaic Indians we are going to collect words for our first word bracket tournament.  I love word bracket tournaments.  All we will do is pick the eight most important words to help us describe the Archaic Indians.  Then the students will seed the words and play the words through our bracket.  

When we are done with the tournament the students will have to support their choices with evidence/reasons for their choices.  I love how these word tournaments force students to determine importance and at the same time force them to support their claims with evidence.

Hope you all had a great start to the week.