Lesson 5 – Great Basin Cultures

            Again, this is a HUGE region.  It looks like most or all of the tribes in this region were nomadic hunter/gatherers.  We picked the Mono to learn about.  I am using another book from the library and is part of the same series as the one I used for the Ohlone.  It is called “The Library of Native Americans ‘The Mono of California’” by Jack S Williams.  Again, we are spending two days going through this book and filling out the form that I mentioned in the overview. 

Lesson 4a – Construction & Power Point

          Same thing as we have been doing.  For us, I am not having him actually construct a house here because we went on a field trip where he got to see a real one already made!  He will be uploading pictures from his trip though and using that as a main focus of his power point.

Lesson 4 - Central Cultures

Today we learned about the tribes of the Central Region.  Now, this is a huge region so for now we are going to focus on our local tribe – the Ohlone.  I am using a book that I picked up at the library called “The Library of Native Americans ‘The Ohlone of California’” by Jack S Williams.  I like this book because it has plenty of pictures and interesting facts.  Some of the other books had a few facts and then jumped right into how the natives were mistreated.  While this is part of our history, it is not where I want the focus to be for us.  We will discuss it but our focus is going to be understanding how the natives lived and survived in our area and what their culture is like.  We are spending 2 days going through this book and finding interesting facts.  We will also be going on a field trip to learn about them too later this week.

Lesson 3a – Construction & Power Point

            Time to build another house!  This time though they had two houses!  One for winter and one for summer.  We cut down on the size here and made both fit in one square on the board.  We made the house out of the craft tooth picks.  We made the tent out of craft sticks that I split down the middle to make thinner.  We rubberbanded the ends together and stuck the bottom part into the salt dough.  Then my son wove brown paper to represent the mats that they used to cover their summer tents.  This we cut and wrapped around the poles and glued together.  (hint: once the paper is woven, cover the back in painters tape or some such.  Then when you cut it, it holds together.)  My son even added a totem pole out of the scraps.  We took pictures of his final house and uploaded it to a new power point and then wrote a description of the house.

Summer Home 

Winter Home

Lesson 3 – North Eastern Cultures

            I had a hard time finding information on the Modoc tribe.  When looking for picutres related to the Modoc (after we finished our study of the tribe) I found this site: http://www.nps.gov/labe/historyculture/modochomeland.htm  I wish I had had this a week ago!  It is actually pretty good.  Other than that we went off of the Sunsplash Publication mentioned in the overview. Most of the information online besides the above mentioned on the Modoc was about their re-location to Oklahoma and Captain Jack’s stand against the US which ended up with both he and 4 others being hung….hum….so stick mostly with the descriptions in “Do California” or the government website – unless you want to jump ahead in the timeline and talk about this.  Here is one link I found with some info: http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/modoc/modochist.htm

Lesson 2a - Construction & Power Point

Since we are building the little houses this takes a separate day.  My son took pictures of his final house and uploaded it to a new power point and then wrote a description of the house.

Here is our sad little house for the Northwestern region.  It is sporting the pitched roof and front porch made of rocks.  It is also showing the 18" circular opening.  Please note that I am not going all "Perfectionist" here (which is really hard for me).  I'm doing it quick and moving on.  The idea is that he learns about the natives and it gets stuck in his brain - not that he hates history and crafts.  The only reason we are doing this is because he wants to. :)

Lesson 2 - North Western Cultures

For this lesson we read through these sites.  We picked the Modoc Tribe.  We used the map mentioned in the overview and he colored the area and marked the approximate locations of the two main tribes.  I then made up a form here for my son to fill out as we go through the different tribes.  From this he will have a quick reference to review and compare the cultures, dwellings, beliefs and lives of the people in different areas.  Below are the sites for the Modoc tribe.

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/modoc/modochist.htm        

http://www.native-languages.org/modoc.htm