Home	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6

Week 3

After observing and discussing images of different Native American homes, we gathered supplies to create our own versions. When the projects were finished we wrote about them in our journals and shared them with the class.

My Tipi is in the desert and it is made of glue, sand, clay, rocks and popsicle sticks and string. Tess

I made a Seminole stilt Chickee house. I used popsicle sticks and tape and cardboard. Josh

My house is called a tipi. One tribe that made tipi's was the Lakota tribe. Gabrielle

Our Long house- We used straws to hold up the burlap. then we put possible sticks around the straws for a wall. After that we put glue all over the paper, put sand on top of it. We made a fire also. Finally, we made something that dries the fish. Amelia

Wednesday

Children collected clay at the Paint Branch Creek. They had so much success that the buckets filled up right away. When we went to bring them home we found out just how heavy clay is and had to leave most of our findings at the creek!

This is a picture of when I found the motherload. When I was in the water I found I was standing on a giant floor of clay and the colors were mixed red and a greenish tan. I think it was really fun because it was cool finding a lot and a lot and a lot of clay!. It was very late when we got back. - A Boy

We caught some fish and some tadpoles. When we got home we made pottery with the clay like Native americans might have. I made a bowl. I used a plastic cup to form the bottom and pinched up the sides. We got caught in a thunder storm and we had to wait to be picked up.
Three cars came to our rescue.-Tess

Thursday

Another field trip! This time we went downtown on the Metro to the Museum of the American Indian. We ate at the Mitsitam Cafe and had a taste of Native American foods. Then we split into groups to tour the museum. At the end we met Dr. Tayac who works at the museum. She is of Piscataway decent and she wrote a book with her 9 year old nephew and what it is like to be growing up as a Native American in Southern Maryland. the book is called Meet Naiche. Dr. Tayac gave us a tour of an exhibit she authored on local Indians called, Return to a Native Place: Algonquian Peoples of the Chesapeake. Wow what a busy week.

My favorite exhibit was on the third floor it was all art that the Native Americans did or non Americans did to show about Native Americans. There were these really pretty Blue and light blue paintings. I think they were paintings of Native Amery icans. I learned something about Dr. Tayac, she said she was a Native American but I thought she was a settler because Native Americans have dark skin and have face paint on and have feathery hats on. So I learned that Native Americans are just like everyone else. -Maryclaire

I think that the museum was cool because of the museum structure, the higher the level the wider the structure. It is important because the museum is like one big document of Indian culture. My favorite exhibit was the was the art gallery because there was a whole bunch of really wonderful paintings.

I learned from Dr. Tayac why the indians planted corn and then planted beans around the corn and then planted pumpkins around the bottom. Dr. Tayac is important because she is someone unique and you don't get to meet a Piscataway Indian everyday. I learned that the beads in the museum are not real Indian beads they are beads from Europe. -Amielia