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Fourth Grade Lesson:
Native American History
- State Student Outcomes
- Explain the role of geography in the settlement of Michigan. Use map and globe skills to locate places.
- Curriculum Link
- Chapter 2, Our Michigan Adventure
- Key Terms
- Native American
- Key Tools/Documents
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- Activities
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- Introduce maps as a useful way to look at places and change over time. If possible, log onto the SOS website to show the first primary source - Map-Expressways Throughout Michigan. Pass out copies of same map to students. Ask students if they have ever been to cities like Detroit, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, or Chicago – inform them that if they have, their car has traveled on I-94. Direct students to find and trace I-94 on their maps. Show I-94 on the website if possible. Pass out copies of the second map to students – Map-Native American Footpaths Throughout Michigan. Direct students to look at this map and find the path of current-day I-94. Students will describe I-94 as a former native trail – St. Joseph’s Trail.
- Students will work in small groups to find other examples of native trails and corresponding contemporary highways. Group leaders can record student matches. If time allows, students can use maps to locate other place names in Michigan that may have Native American names. Group leaders can lead or help out if students have difficulty finding place names.
- Using place nametags, students in groups will try to match names of places in Michigan with their Native American meanings. Group leaders can assist and encourage students to use maps as possible sources for guesses. Possible pairs can include:
- Michigan – “big water”
- Alpena – “bird”
- Muskegon – “swamp”
- Menominee – “rice people”
- Washtenaw –“the land beyond”
- As a class, go over group guesses. Visually hold up each place nametag and cue groups to choose and hold up the tag that shows its Native-American meaning. Correct as necessary, and provide historical or geographic explanations as needed.
- Challenge
- Encourage students to spend the next week looking around their neighborhoods and in Ann Arbor for streets that may have Native American names. Or look at a state map and find additional towns or cities that have Native American names and try to guess their meanings.
