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COMPLETING THE CIRCLE CURRICULUM

GRADE THREE UNITS

Developed for the Office of Indian Education Programs, Bureau of Indian Affairs, by the Center for Language in Learning. Copyright: Center for Language in Learning

COMPLETING THE CIRCLE CURRICULUM - GRADE THREE UNITS

Language Arts Standards for Grade ThreePage 2

Grade Three Units:

Ancient TimesPage 3

Voyages to AdventurePage 18

The Solar SystemPage 31

Animals and HabitatsPage 45

Historic EventsPage 58

Culture and TraditionsPage 71

Cycle of LifePage 83

The Earth/Soil and LandPage 96

Note: The topics for the units were selected after a search to determine what themes were most common across reading series used by BIA-funded schools and across the social studies and science content standards. Another consideration for selection of themes was whether or not there was Indian literature available on a topic.

Where to Get Indian BooksPage 110

References to Teaching Books,

Poetry Books and Other ResourcesPage 111

Refer to the Introduction section and the teaching guides for Reading, Writing and Assessment for further information on implementing this curriculum.

GRADE THREE LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS

Students will be able to:

Reading

  • apply knowledge of structural analysis of words, including word endings, contractions, and compound words.
  • cross-check and use a variety of strategies to self-correct for comprehension, including rereading.
  • make, confirm, or revise predictions.
  • use structure of a variety of informational texts and fiction for comprehension.
  • develop an understanding of author’s craft, including fact and fantasy, figurative language, humor, poetry elements, and dialogue to aid comprehension.
  • relate reading to personal knowledge and experience.
  • learn new vocabulary related to literature and experience.
  • use context and resources to verify meaning of new vocabulary.
  • use homophones to extend understanding.
  • locate information using features of nonfiction and technology resources.
  • share ideas, reactions, and opinions about literature and content.
  • support opinions and statements from text.

Writing

  • write in a variety of genres, including responses to reading.
  • organize and revise writing for content and logical sequence around a main idea.
  • write interrogative, declarative and exclamatory sentences.
  • combine sentences to form compound sentences.
  • demonstrate functional use of nouns, verb tenses, adjectives, and pronouns.
  • develop and use knowledge of spelling conventions daily.
  • organize writing into paragraphs during revision.
  • edit for capitalization, end punctuation, and spelling on final drafts.
  • form and use cursive letters.
  • use technology, including word processing, telecommunications, and multimedia to acquire and share information.

Oral Language

  • demonstrate functional use of parts of speech during conversation.
  • dramatize stories or poems.
  • develop vocabulary and concepts during read-aloud and discussion of topics.
  • gather information through interview questions and listening to others.
  • discuss content of reading, including opinions, comparisons, and inferences.
  • participate in classroom activities by following directions, asking for clarification, sharing ideas, reporting, and persuading others.

These standards apply to all Grade Three units.

Approx. 4 Week Unit ANCIENT TIMES3 – Reading & Soc. Studies

Introduction to the Theme and Unit

In this unit, children will learn about ancient times in the America and compare those times to their own lives today. They will gain a sense of the vast time periods involved, the approximate chronology of changes in the natural environment and the adaptations that those changes caused for human beings and other living things (animals and plants) living in those periods. For example, shelter depended on geographic regions and climate but humans also adapted as they moved from hunting and wild food gathering to farming lifestyles that enabled them to build more permanent shelters.

Children will begin to understand how we use artifacts, art and stories in addition to the methods of western science to conjecture about how humans lived their daily lives in ancient times. They will reflect on the evidence in their own lives (artifacts, art, stories) that might be left for future humans to understand the way we live now.

Finally, children will consider how Native Americans met challenges by developing survival skills and living in balance with nature. The wisdom of these ancient times can be used to understand and continue or change positive and negative aspects of our lives today.

The following social studies concepts should be promoted in this unit:

Children will learn about ancient times in the Americas, including the fact that dinosaurs lived here millions of years before the time period we refer to as “ancient times.”

Children will compare and contrast lifestyles of people in ancient times with their own lifestyles.

Children will give examples of inventions, architecture, and art of ancient times.

Children will examine a variety of sources including pictures and artifacts to get information about ancient times.

Children will gather information about climate, locations, and physical features to describe the ways that people met their basic needs in ancient times.

Children will describe the ways in which people adapted to their environment in ancient times.

Children will demonstrate a basic understanding of chronology, with ancient times generally considered to include accounts of early human life in America.

Children will organize and classify information.

ANCIENT TIMES - 3

Childrenwill use a variety of forms to communicate knowledge of historical concepts.

*Note Indian people believe that they have always been in the Americas, and non Indians keep discovering evidence that may refute the Bering Strait theory that promotes the idea that people began to cross the Bering Strait land bridge into the Americas in about 50,000 B.C.

Literacy strategies include the following in both English and the native language whenever possible:

Storytelling

Read alouds, shared reading, guided reading and individual reading (reading

workshop)

Retelling through drama, art, writing and talking

Comprehension strategies including using prior experience, making

connections, finding important ideas, predicting, questioning,

visualizing, and using graphic organizers

Instructional conversations

Developing vocabulary through thematic study, using word parts, and

using words in the native language whenever possible.

Using a variety of strategies to read independently in complex texts, with

special attention to informational texts.

Independently writing a wide variety of genre, both narrative and non narrative

Shared writing, guided writing, and individual writing (writing workshop)

Growing ability to use writing process fully, including prewriting, revision,

seeking response, revising, editing, and “publishing.”

Developing fluent, expressive oral reading skills through readers theater and

choral reading.

Content inquiry strategies including the following:

Finding information in narrative and non narrative texts

Observations in classroom and in natural habitats

Developing sensory awareness

Gathering information from knowledgeable others

Learning to use a wider range of information sources using variousTechnologies and search tools (e.g. internet, media, dictionaries, indexes, and so

on.)

Building knowledge collaboratively

Cultural activities developed by school and community based on the theme

ANCIENT TIMES - 3

Suggested Literature

On the Cliffs of Acoma by John Dressman

One Small Blue Bead by Byrd Baylor

Before Columbus by Muriel Batherman

When Clay Sings by Byrd Baylor

The People Shall Continue by Simon Ortiz

Neekna and Chemai by Jeanette Armstrong

Resource: Keepers of the Earth by Caduto and Bruchac

Life Story by Virginia Burton

Activities

Research-based content inquiry strategies

Research-based literacy strategies for word study

Research-based literacy strategies for comprehension

Research-based writing activities

Workshops and Activity Centers – See Reading and Writing Guides

Assessment

Observations, work samples and self-assessment. See the Assessment Guide and the section on assessment in this unit.

INTRODUCTION TO ONE WAY TO IMPLEMENT THIS UNIT

Start the unit with two stories in which children – one from ancient times and two from modern times – are curious about how people lived in other times and places. These two stories will set the stage for the main purpose of the unit: to help children understand that we can learn from the past.

Send a letter home to families describing the goals of the unit and some of the literature and projects that you will be using. Invite families to share stories and experiences they may have in regard to information about ancient times as the children bring home questions and ideas about their growing understandings of that time period. Explain that in the end the children will be comparing what life was like in ancient times to their lives now. Family input is important for both the then and now halves of the unit. The overarching goal is for children to understand that we must live our lives wisely in order to create a more positive future for the earth and all its inhabitants.

It will be important to work closely with the culture teacher who can share advice on potentially sensitive aspects of the unit and who will also know how to access local resources such as museums and histories and storytelling traditions. Strategies in bold explained more fully in the Guides.

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On the Cliffs of Acoma by John Dressman available from Indian book distributors or

This story is about a brother and sister from the Acoma Pueblo today. As they go about their daily lives, they make an accidental discovery that links them to an important event in the history of their pueblo.

  1. Begin by modeling a dialogue journal in which you write a time when you

wondered about what life was like in some past time: either life in your particular community or place in the world or the life of one or more of your ancestors. Ask the children to write dialogue journals on the same topic. As they work they can share with each other in small groups. Have everyone share a “shortened version” of his/her journal which you capture orally on a chart titled “I wonder….”

  1. Locate Acoma Pueblo on a map and read the introduction to the story.
  2. First Reading: Model questioning as a comprehension strategy by doing a “think aloud” of your own questions. Emphasize the difference in questions (1) before reading a story which might raise your curiosity, (2) questions during reading which influence the back and forth predicting and confirming process that drives reading forward, and (3) questions after the story which can push our thinking deeper and/or back out to the world beyond the story. Examples of questions you might consider. Your own authentic questions

always work best!

• It says the people have lived longer here than any other place

in North America? Is this really true or an exaggeration?

• Who is Kum-Mushk-Qi-Yo? Are there stories about her that I could read?

• I wonder in what ways the leader was too proud.

• I wonder if Christina will be more interested in past history now.

•Who is John Dressman? Is he an Indian? What is his authority and expertise to tell this story?

• Why is this story written in Spanish as well as English if it is about the Pueblo Indians?

• You might also wonder if anyone ever falls off the cliffs and dies but this is one the children will probably bring up themselves so be patient!!!

  1. Instructional Conversation (IC): Ask the children if they have any thoughts on your questions and/or if they have questions they would like to add. Add their questions to a chart on which you’ve already listed your questions.
  2. Second Reading: IC: Informal collaborative retelling. Return to the question chart. Are there any new questions? Are there any thoughts about the questions that are there. Let the questions guide the discussion.

You might add, if they don’t, wondering about what the family will think about the button and whether Peter will go on to learn more about the history of the Pueblo, and so on.

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  1. Read the short history at the end of the book and look at the bibliography. Did it answer any of the questions? Why did the author give a bibliography?

Explore these books and other sources to find more information about the Acoma Pueblo. Add these sources (afterwards or short history and bibliography) to characteristics of information texts. Is this a purely information text or fiction or a mixture of the two?

  1. Write a letter to the author to ask questions about his background, why he

wrote the story, and why it is written in Spanish.

8. Have the children write the next chapter of the story. What happens when

Peter tells his father?

One Small Blue Bead by Byrd Baylor available from Four Winds Indian books or Amazon.com

This is the story of a young boy in ancient times (desert hunters and gatherers) who was friends with an old man who wondered if there were other people in the world. The boy was filled with wonder and curiosity. Use the story as a possible window into the ways life was lived in ancient times.

  1. Show the children the cover and title and ask them to predict what they believe the story may be about. Note names or initials by individual predictions. You will be returning after the first reading to discover the connections they made between their prior experience, the prediction, and the text itself. See Experience, Text, Relationship (ETR) in Reading Guide.
  2. First Reading. Use storytelling strategies. IC: Children can first respond openly with connections, questions, feelings, and observations. They may

connect to the previous story in which the boy was curious about the past.

They may wonder why these people didn’t know other humans existed.

Collect questions on a chart, paralleling the process used with the previous story.

  1. Second Reading. IC: Invite children to collaborate in an informal

retelling of the story. Talk about inference and what it means to use prior experience, the text, the pictures, and good hypotheses to “infer” information.

  1. Third Reading. May need to put story on an overhead so the children can see

the text as you read. Explain that they are going to read the text closely to gather information on the life of this group of people. Where did they live? What was the environment like? The animals, the plants? The weather? When do they think the story took place? What did the boy do on a daily basis? Gather their contributions on a chart. Go back to the chart and code it by marking which information was stated in the text and which information they inferred.

  1. Discuss possible artifacts or other evidence that people left behind which

might let us infer what life was like. If they don’t on their own, bring up the bead and the button from Cliffs.

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  1. You may want to compare the two stories using a Venn diagram. In this case

the evidence (and in particular the bead and the button) may come up naturally.

Content Inquiry Strategies

If possible, use the activity suggested by Caduto and Bruchac in Keepers of the Earth titled “The Time of Our Lives” on pp. 189-190. This activity is designed to give children a concrete way to envision the age of the earth and understand the impact of humans on the earth in a relatively short period of time. If Keepers is unavailable as a resource, mark a distance of approximately 100 feet to represent the time the solar system was born and the earth formed: 4.6 billion years. Other important times suggested are 3.5 billion years, the beginning of life; 405 million years, the first life on land; 300 million years, first insects; 200 million years, dinosaurs appear; 136 million years, flowering plants appear; 65 million years, dinosaurs disappear; 300,000 years, oldest remains humans; 10,0000 years, beginning of farming; 2000 years, beginnings of modern calendar and so on to present.

Mark each milestone with signs indicating the development and date. Have children carry writing tools and jot notes concerning their thoughts and questions as the move along the timeline. When they get back to class, let them spend some time envisioning what the earth might have looked like at each stage of development and thinking about what living things would be present in each time period. They can use pictures and words to hypothesize.

Instructional Conversation: How are the children thinking about the extremely large amounts of time involved? (You may wish to use the book How Much Is a Million? to help them envision numbers so large.) What are their feelings about the relatively brief amount of time humans have existed on the earth? How have changes escalated just in the last 500 years? In the last 100 years? In the last 10 years? What changes might happen in the future? How quickly? Talk with the children about the importance of understanding connections between the past, the present, and the future. The future depends on the actions we take now and those in turn depend on our learning (or not) from the wisdom and mistakes of the past.