After completing the lessons in this unit,
students will be able to: - Describe two different houses in use at the
time the first European settlements were founded.
- List ways in which our
lives differ from the lives of the Native Americans and Europeans during that
period of history.
- Identify different ways people meet the basic human
need for shelter.
Guiding Question:
What were the similarities and differences between the homes of Native Americans
and the newly arrived European settlers? What connections can be made between
house design, environment and lifestyle? What are the essential qualities of a
house?
Preparing to Teach this Lesson
- Review each lesson in this unit and
select archival materials you'd like to use in class. If possible, bookmark these
materials, along with other useful websites; download and print out selected documents
and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
- For Lesson
2, find some photographs of "show" houses from magazines.
- For
Lesson 4, mark off a circular
area in the classroom with a diameter of about eight feet, the approximate size
of the smallest wigwam. If your class is going to explore tipis, mark off a circle
about 10-12 feet in diameter.
- This lesson concentrates on two
types of Native American houses. Obtain background information and extensions
on these and many other types of houses from the following EDSITEment resources:
- Indian Crafts &
Skills: Illustrated Guide for Making Authentic Indian Clothing, Shelters, Ornaments
by David Montgomery (Horizon Pub Co, 1985; ISBN: 0882902741) can be a helpful
resource if you want your students to make models of authentic Native American
shelters.
- As there is a broad range of abilities from kindergarten
to second grade, feel free to adjust the lesson as needed to fit the needs of
your class. Use read-alouds and pictures to help make the concepts in this lesson
more concrete, especially for younger students. In the following books, many rich
in photographs and illustrations, you will also find Native American words that
can be pulled to put onto word charts or in word banks.
- Cohlene,
Terri. Quillworker : A Cheyenne Legend (Native
American Legends). Illustrated by Charles Reasoner. Troll, 1991 (reprint edition).
(Reading level: Ages 9-12; ISBN: 0816723583)
- Cohlene, Terri.
Turquoise Boy. Illustrated by Charles Reasoner.
Troll, 1991 (reprint edition). (Reading level: Ages 9-12; Paperback: 48 pages;
ISBN: 0816723605)
- Goble, Paul. The
Girl Who Loved Horses. Aladdin Paperbacks, 1993 (reissue edition). (Reading
level: Ages 4-8; Paperback: 32 pages; ISBN: 0689716966)
- Hirshfelder,
Arlene. Native Americans: A History in Pictures.
DK Publishing, 2000. (Hardcover: 192 pages; ISBN: 078945162X)
- Murdoch,
David and Stanley A. Freed. Eyewitness: North American
Indian (Eyewitness Books). Photographs by Lynton Gardiner. DK Publishing,
2000. (Reading level: Ages 9-12; 64 pages; ISBN: 0789466090)
- Martin,
Rafe. The Rough-Face Girl (an Algonquin Cinderella
story). Illustrated by David Shannon. Paper Star, 1998 (reissue edition). (Reading
level: Ages 4-8; Paperback: 32 pages; ISBN: 0698116267
- Smith,
Carter, ed. Exploring the Frontier: A Sourcebook on
the American West (American Albums from the Collections of the Library
of Congress). Millbrook Press, 1996 (reprint edition). (Reading level: Ages 9-12;
Paperback: 96 pages; ISBN: 0761301526)
- Smith, Carter, ed. Native
Americans of the West: A Sourcebook on the American West (American Albums
from the Collections of the Library of Congress). Millbrook Press, 1996 (reprint
edition). (Reading level: Ages 9-12; Paperback: 96 pages; ISBN: 0761301542)
- Sneve, Virginia Driving Hawk. Dancing Teepees:
Poems of American Indian Youth. Illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Holiday
House, 1991 (reprint edition). (Reading level: Ages 4-8; ISBN: 0823408795)
Suggested Activities
Lesson 1: What's
In and Around Our Houses?
Lesson
2: Dream Houses
Lesson
3: Real Houses of the Recent Past: A Survey
Lesson
4: Real Native American Houses
Lesson
5: Real European Homes in North America
Lesson
6: In and Around a Native House
Lesson
7: In a European Settler's House
Lesson
8: Not All Native Houses are the Same
Lesson
9: What Should a House Do?
Extending
the Lesson
Lesson 1 What's In and Around Our
Houses?
Shortly before you are going to begin this unit, ask students
to bring in photographs of their homes, or any house. Start the lesson by encouraging
students to share their pictures. As the students talk about the homes, make a
list of common elements (walls, roofs, doors, windows). Once you have compiled
a reasonable list, engage the students in discussion. Ask such questions as, "What
is a house?" and "Why do we need houses?" as well as "What kind of house do you
live in?"
If desired, ask students to draw pictures of their own homes
without looking at the photograph they brought. Have students include as many
elements from the list as they can. When they are done, have students sit together
in a circle with their pictures. Ask questions about items from the list of common
elements, such as, "Who drew a front door?" Students who drew a front door can
then point to the front door on their drawing.
Lesson 2 Dream Houses
Children love to talk about, fantasize about and design their dream homes. Most
students dream of huge, extravagant mansions. This lesson will lead them from
this dream to thinking about what is essential and what is desirable in a house.
Share with the children some pictures of "show" houses from magazines. If
you have enough photos, give one to each child. Get them talking about the homes.
Can they find the items from their list? Can they tell what materials were used
to build the houses? What do the students like about any particular show house,
and in their own houses? What makes these houses so special that they are featured
in magazines? Then give the students a chance to design/draw their dream houses
and to share their ideas. Save the drawings.
Lesson 3 Real Houses of the Recent
Past: A Survey
As a homework assignment, have students take home
a survey/interview with questions for an adult to answer. Include questions such
as the following: - Describe or draw the home in which you lived when you
were a child.
- Describe or draw ways in which that home was different from
your current home.
- Describe or draw ways in which that home was similar
to your current home.
- What do you know about your parents' childhood homes?
After
the surveys have been completed, encourage volunteers to share answers they received
to the survey questions. How have houses changed? What about houses has stayed
the same?
Lesson 4 Real Native American Houses
Background for the Teacher
The next
two lessons explore the materials and techniques used by Native Americans and
European settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Both had to depend largely on
local materials and the labor of neighbors. Some Europeans were able to import
goods, but importing was slow and expensive. There were no Home Depots. There
were no power tools.
Native Americans were faced with the challenge of
building their houses from available natural materials, using readily available
labor. One of the solutions to the problem of materials and labor was to build
a smaller house in which all of the available space would be multi-purpose. Moving
was also easier with such dwellings. A wigwam could be placed on mats and dragged
to a new location. Tipis are very portable.
Activities
Take the students outside to any area that is natural; if
that is impractical, use pictures instead. Compile a list of the materials students
might be able to utilize if they had to build a house using only items found there.
Show the class the wigwam-sized area you marked off in the classroom (a circle
about eight feet in diameter; see Preparing
to Teach This Unit). How many students can comfortably sit inside the circle?
Would it be big enough to house 2-4 people? The size of the circle is the same
as that of a small wigwam, a Native American house built in the area in which
the Pilgrims settled.
With some students sitting inside the "wigwam,"
read to the class a book about Eastern Woodland natives, such as People
of the Breaking Day by Marcia Sewall or An
Algonquin Year: The Year According to the Full Moon by Michael McCurdy.
Now share with the students Building
Our Wigwam on NativeTech,
a link from the EDSITEment resource NativeWeb.
How is the wigwam being made? What's good about this construction method? (Materials
are at hand, the dome-like structure is surprisingly strong, shelter can be erected
quickly, no outside specialists are needed, only one special tool is needed, and
so on.) What are the disadvantages? (Small in size, and so on.)
If desired,
give students the opportunity to construct a small model of a wigwam using authentic
materials (flexible sticks, bark). Construct the wigwam on a base of soft clay
so you can put the "saplings" in the "ground." If practical, make the saplings
about 14 inches long to construct a house 1/12th the scale of the wigwam shown.
Bark soaked in water may adhere to the framework; otherwise, use glue.
Let students know that they will soon look inside a wigwam to get an idea of what
else this house does for those who live in it.
For further exploration,
you can show the class another style of Native American house the tipi.
Though the earliest drawing listed below is from 1837, the basic design and construction
of tipis has remained constant to this day. The lifestyle related to tipi-dwelling
was made possible by the introduction of the horse to North America by the Spanish.
The following images are all available via a link from the EDSITEment resource
NativeWeb unless otherwise
noted.
How is the tipi framed? How is
it covered? What's good about this construction method? (Materials are at hand;
the structure is surprisingly strong; shelter can be erected quickly; no outside
specialists are needed; can be painted for beauty; can be disassembled, carried
with you and easily re-erected; and so on.) What are the disadvantages? (Small
in size, and so on.) Why was animal hide used to cover the tipi?
It would
be possible to construct a tipi in the classroom or to denote an area the size
of a tipi, as with the wigwam. Tipis have heights of about 12-25 feet and diameters
of about 10-25 feet.
If desired, give students the opportunity to construct
a model of a tipi using similar materials (sticks, cloth or leather). Construct
the tipi on a base of soft clay so you can put the sticks in the "ground."
Let students know that they will soon look inside a tipi to get an idea of
what else this house does for those who live in it.
Lesson 5 Real European Homes in
North America
Background for the Teacher
In this lesson, students will look at some of the steps required in the construction
of the homes of early European settlers. How does the process compare to the building
of the Native American houses? How many people were needed? What tools were needed?
What materials?
According to the Pilgrim
Hall Museum, a link from The
Plymouth Colony Archive Project at the University of Virginia, "There is no
evidence that the Pilgrims adopted Native housing, in spite of the fact that it
had been developed to suit the environment, and probably was warmer in the winter."
Though European settlers had difficulty rallying materials and labor,
they chose to build more permanent dwellings. Why? If desired, encourage students
to develop hypotheses. Were Europeans trying to recreate in the New World what
they knew in the Old? As strangers in a new environment, did the settlers feel
a greater need to build homes that did more to block out their surroundings? (Consider
the difference between camping out in your backyard and camping out in a forest
you've never been to.)
Activities
On The
Plymouth Colony Archive Project at the University of Virginia, an EDSITEment-reviewed
website, there is a photographic record of a project in which authentic building
materials and techniques were used to meticulously construct a house from the
Plymouth colony, as might have been done in 1627. (For detailed background on
this house and its construction, see the essay Seventeenth-Century
Timber Framing.) Select as many or as few of the following images from the
record as you deem appropriate to share with students. The images are listed here
in order of construction; the starred items are recommended. Compare the construction of this house to that of a wigwam
or tipi. With all materials properly prepared, a tipi can be raised in less than
an hour. The basic frame of the European house only took a day to erect, but what
part of the work is not shown? How many people appear to be involved? What tools
were necessary? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such construction?
How does this house compare in size with the wigwam and/or tipi? (It's only slightly
bigger than the small wigwam, though there is an additional loft.) Why didn't
the settlers build houses like their Native American neighbors?
Which
house design wigwam or European frame house would students build
if they had to make a home quickly? Which would they rather live in? What does
each house do for the people who live in it? What don't these houses do that our
houses do today?
If desired, students can conduct a home survey, with
the help of parents. What materials went into the construction of their homes?
When discussing their findings in class, emphasize how much processing the materials
in a typical contemporary home require.
If there are any homes under
construction near your school, students could see how contemporary homes are framed.
The Pilgrims used post-and-beam construction, in which large pieces of lumber
were notched into one another; most contemporary houses are framed using studs
and joists nailed to one another.
Note: Building a model of a frame house
might be accomplished with Popsicle sticks, but only with great difficulty and,
most likely, a lot of glue (which was not part of the construction technique of
the time). The difficult construction is quite to the point since the European
construction was much more complex and labor-intensive than the Native American.
Lesson 6 In and Around a Native
House
Wigwams
What might
you find in a wigwam? What was done inside wigwams? What surprises you about wigwams?
What did people do just outside wigwams? Tipis
What might
you find in a tipi? What was done inside tipis? What surprises you about tipis?
Lesson 7 In a European Settler's
House
Have students take a closer look at an artist's representation
of the interior of the Plymouth house Henry
Glassie's drawing of the proposed Billington house (1973), available on The
Plymouth Colony Archive Project at the University of Virginia, an EDSITEment
resource. What does this house have that the Native American houses do not? (Not
much ... it's hardly bigger, has no kitchen or bathroom facilities, locates the
bed on the floor, has little in the way of windows and so on. Note that the fire
is central to all the houses.)
Lesson 8 Not All Native Houses are
the Same
Background for the Teacher
Some Native Americans, like the European settlers, invested
time, tools and specialists into permanent dwellings. An introduction to such
"permanent" structures will provide a more balanced view of Native American housing.
(NOTE: The images below were created from 1792 to the early twentieth century.)
Activity
Show the students the following images without identifying them. Only
one is not a Native American house. Can the students tell which it is? On what
do they base their hypotheses?
Lesson 9 What Should a House Do?
Background for the Teacher
The essence
of this activity is to summarize the common features of the various houses discussed
during the unit. Presumably, those features serve essential purposes. Students
also are invited to conduct research about how their own houses are utilized.
Adjust the lesson for your class as necessary.
Note: A number of the
suggested questions below provide the opportunity for students to consider that
big is not necessarily better. Nevertheless, as students discuss their own houses,
remain sensitive to disparities in house sizes and levels of affluence.
Activity
Take another look at students'
dream houses. Then consider all of the housing designs discussed in this unit.
What did the dream houses do for their occupants that the other houses did not?
Which of those things were really important? What did the wigwam and Pilgrim house
do for the people who lived there? Did they provide shelter from the elements?
A place to work? A place to sleep? Which houses did the students consider most
beautiful? What other things did they like or not like about the various houses?
If desired, have students conduct surveys of home usage as a homework project
(adjust the complexity of the project depending on the class). For example, ask
students to spend time in one or more public room of their house and to keep track
of the activity in that room. Which room gets used a lot? For what purposes? Which
rooms are hardly used?
In a world of limited resources and limited space,
how would students redesign homes to avoid waste? Would some students now change
the design of their dream house?
Extending the Lesson
- Though this unit focused on wigwams
and tipis, the long house was also a common design for Native American houses
in the Northeast. In fact, the Iroquois called themselves Haudenosaunee,
meaning the People of the Longhouse. Share photos of longhouses with students
and compare and contrast the structure with other types of houses. Did longhouses
have advantages or disadvantages over wigwams and/or tipis? What were they?
- Have students look at a variety of other Native American houses and, when
relevant, the houses of Europeans who settled in the same area. For example, students
could compare a Hopi pueblo with the adobe structures of Spanish colonials. Begin
your exploration with the following resources, both accessible via links from
the EDSITEment-reviewed website NativeWeb:
- Arrange a field trip to a museum with
re-creations of dwellings.
- Students whose ancestors were not
Native Americans or early European settlers can uncover the housing styles of
their family ancestors.
- There are many famous houses in the
U.S., including the White House, Henry David Thoreau's cabin at Walden Pond, Martin
Luther King, Jr.'s boyhood home, and others. Students can research these using
the following EDSITEment resources and links:
- Building
Big, an EDSITEment-reviewed website has sections on building domes and skyscrapers
architecturally sophisticated extensions of the wigwam and the framed building,
respectively. The site includes interactive activities designed for students in
intermediate grades that might be suitable or adaptable for younger students.
Selected EDSITEment Websites
American Memory
http://memory.loc.gov/
The American
President
http://www.americanpresident.org/
The White House
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Building
Big
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/index.html
The
Digital Classroom National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.nara.gov/education/
Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org
Lewis
& Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery
http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/index.html
Liberty! The
American Revolution
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/
Martin Luther
King, Jr.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/
Native Web
http://www.nativeweb.org
Haida
House
http://www.hallman.org/indian/house.html
Native Tech
http://www.nativetech.org/
Tipis-Tepees-Teepees
http://www.tipis-tepees-teepees.com/
Pre-Contact
Housing Types
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maps/houses/housingmap.html
Sandia Pueblo
http://www.sandiapueblo.nsn.us/
New Perspectives
on the West
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest
The
Plymouth Colony Archive Project at the University of Virginia
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/users/deetz/Plymouth/
Pilgrim
Hall Museum
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/phouses.htm >
Virtual
Jamestown
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vcdh/jamestown/
Other Resources:
Recommended reading from the Learning Page of American
Memory - Anderson, Madelyn Klein. North
American Indian Games. N.Y.: Franklin Watts, 2000.
- D'Alelio, Jane.
I Know That Building! Washington, D.C.: The
Preservation Press, 1989.
- Hakim, Joy. The
First Americans. Second Edition. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Philip,
Neil, ed. A Braid of Lives: Native American Childhood.
N.Y.: Clarion Books, 2000.
- Shelby, Anne. Homeplace.
N.Y.: Orchard, 1995.
- Wilson, Forrest. What
It Feels Like to Be a Building. Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press,
1988.
Recommended reading from Carol
Hurst's Children's Literature Page, a link from Internet
Public Library - Baker, Olaf. Where the
Buffaloes Begin. Illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Viking Press, 1985 (reprint
edition). (Reading level: Ages 4-8; Paperback: 44 pages; ISBN: 0140505601)
- Sewall,
Marcia. People of the Breaking Day. Atheneum,
1990. (Reading level: Grades 2+; ISBN 0-689-31407-8)
- Sewall, Marcia. Pilgrims
of Plimouth. Macmillan, 1986. (Reading level: Grades 2+; ISBN 0-689-31250-4)
- Sewall,
Marcia. Thunder from the Clear Sky. Atheneum,
1995. (Reading level: Grades 2+; ISBN 0-689-31775-1)
Recommended reading
from Native Web
- Bruchac, Joseph. Fox Song. Illustrated
by Paul Morin. Paper Star, 1997 (reprint edition). (Reading level: Ages 4-8; Paperback:
32 pages; ISBN: 0698115619)
- Flanagan, Alice K. The
Wampanoags. Children's Press, 1998. (Reading level: Ages 4-8; Paperback:
48 pages; ISBN: 0516263889)
- McCurdy, Michael. An
Algonquian Year : The Year According to the Full Moon. Houghton Mifflin
Co., 2000. (Hardcover: 32 pages; ISBN: 0618007059)