Pepperell Elementary holds its 1st Native American Day
The sound of flute music filled teacher Michelle Clay’s classroom at Pepperell Elementary School on Wednesday as students trekked across the U.S. during the first Native American Day.
The interactive presentations — complete with corresponding dress, poster boards, village diagrams and other props — capped off the students’ unit on Native Americans which started last month, said Clay. When she told the students about the project and its loose guidelines, she assumed there would be nothing but poster boards with pictures on them.
But, to her surprise, students took that a few steps further.
Besides dressing in faux tanned animal skins or furry jackets — in the case of the Inuit — students made model villages to accompany the information they gleaned from their studies — parents even got caught up in the creative process.
Popsicle sticks formed the longhouses of the Northwest, burlap ribbon covered a frame for the Inuit teepee, cardboard boxes wrapped in brown paper with a ladder sticking through a hole on top exhibited a Pueblo pithouse and a toilet paper roll was plastered with tiny marshmallows for an igloo.
Each presentation table was positioned as if there was a map of the country on the floor, with each Native American group studied positioned in the region they inhabited.
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Other classes jumped from table to table, finding out about the region, weather, clothing, homes, food and other facts of the Native American groups represented.
Clay has seen students who are typically shy become invigorated by the project and not hesitating to share what they’ve learned. It definitely improves students’ public speaking skills, she said.
In the past, third-grade standards didn’t call for an introductory Native American unit, but that was
recently changed, Clay said. She stressed the importance of her students understanding the heritage of the nation and how early Native Americans survived and lived.
By showing how the way of life in the country has changed, it gives students a concept of the differences between the past and present of their nation.