In order to teach about Native American tribes this year, we held a powwow where different "tribes" came together to share a song, dance, costume, poem, or list of facts about their tribe. First, I read The Legend of the Blue Bonnets by Tomie DePaola. We discussed what a ceremony was and I divvied up groups. At the end of the week, I arranged the desks in a circle and played Native American music (from Youtube) to create a ceremonial atmosphere. Each group presented their various creative pieces and the rest of the class listened to write down three facts about each tribe. As groups performed, I taped a sign with that tribe's name over their location on the United States map. Students were interested in their own tribe very much, had a BLAST performing, and actually enacted a real powwow to honor Native American culture.
(We will never soon forget the breech cloth. Note we did not Google that or search online. We just used sets of books I had available. If you search these terms, it's not classroom friendly.)
To just brag a little, the retention on this activity was awesome. Months later, in correlation with football and the Super Bowl, I answered some questions on the controversy with calling a team the Redskins. In the classroom discussion, we could name all of these tribes and more: Pueblo, Iriquois, Cheyenne, Crow, Creek, Souix, Navajo, Lenni Lenape, and Nez Perce. It was nice to see the facts stick and I attribute that to the fun we had holding a "real" powwow.
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