These are resources to be used in teaching two lessons  - each related to a unit in my 5/6 grade teaching.  Lesson 1 follows a series of place-based lessons about the Abenaki people, indigenous to NH/VT, where we live. Students will have explored learning Abenaki names for rivers, lakes and mountains in NH/VT, and will have recently worked with a visiting Abenaki storyteller and historian.   The lessons here underscores an essential understanding of the unit:  Indigenous groups are not 'past tense'.   By first considering images of 18th & 19th century garments - one Abenaki, one from a very different region, Lakota Sioux, students will next explore Jeffrey Gibson's Watchtower garment and, after collaborating to share observations & reflections about the piece, will learn about its context through videos and informational text.

I've also assembled resources here to use in other 5th grade units - one about Immigration, another about the Electoral process.  Because I'm still working out details (e.g., lesson structure, thinking protocols, etc.), I won't publish them with the SAAM lesson - handy to have the resources all in one place, though! 

Briefly: 

Immigration lessons will follow 5th graders' reading Pam Muñoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising, and an exploration of US Immigration history through various informational texts and primary sources.  The focus of the lesson will be to explore Chicana/o artivism around the Grape Boycott of the 1970s, as well as contemporary connections with agricultural labor and migration/immigration.  A goal of the lesson will be for students to understand the role of 'Artivism' in advocating for change/justice, and to develop a longer term understanding of the complex and contested reality of immigration in US history. 

Images about voting - Register to Vote, 3 Great Abolitionists, Woman Suffrage and County Election Day will follow some informational lessons about the electoral process, complicating it and encouraging students to reflect on challenges and historical progress.  I'm currently in conversation with the Norwich Historical Society about the prospect of simulating a Norwich Town Meeting - circa 1900 - where girls in the class wil initially sit in the back and be excluded from the voting  process. 

Finally, learning States and Capitals is part of the 5th grade curriculum; the two pieces (States Names, by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Indian Country) could be used next year in 6th grade, when students learn about the process and eras of colonization, in connection with a study of the Columbian Exchange, leading (over the course of the year) to learning about the Revolutionary period.