THE FIRST PEOPLE
DAKOTA NATION

Grade Level:
4^th-8^th

Standards Integration:
Minnesota:
Grades 4-5: Social Studies-Geography and Citizenship
1. The interaction of people, places, and locations.
Grades 6-8: Read, Listen, and View-Fiction
4. Categorizing events, behavior, or characters.
Write and Speak-Writing
2a. A narrative including a description of events from direct experience or observation.

North Dakota:
Grades K-4: Social Studies-Culture
4.7.2 Understand the role of language, customs, and traditions in cultures.
Language Arts-Students write for a variety of purposes and audiences. 5.4.3 Understand characteristics of different forms of writing.
Visual Arts-History and Culture
4.4.1 Know that visual art has both a history and specific relationship to various cultures.
Grades 5-8: Visual Art-Subject Matters, Themes, Symbols, and Ideas in Visual Art
8.3.1 Understand how to apply subjects, themes, symbols, and ideas in visual art to communicate ideas.
Language Arts-Students write for a variety of purposes and audiences. 5.8.3 Understand that writing is a way of expressing and understanding one’s self.

Materials:
Paper bags or brown construction paper, markers.

Objectives:

	Through detailed study of Dakota/Lakota Sioux history and culture, the students will comprehend the importance of the winter count to the Dakota people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
	The students will be able to explain, orally or in writing, the events they have chosen to use in a personal winter count. The goal is demonstrate communication skills.

Background-Winter Count Activity
Native Americans of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used symbols rather than a written alphabet as a form of communication. The Dakota/Lakota Sioux calendars marked time by the seasons and stellar/lunar observation, and often used a bison hide canvas to record important events in the life of the tribe. Rather than number years, an artist recorded a picture or symbol that reflected the most important event for each winter. Such winter counts are preserved as a map of the tribe’s history and its cultural record.

Pre-Visit Activity 1:
Explain the background of the winter count to students. Have the students create a list of important events recalled from their own lives (for example: the day they were born, their first step or word, first day of school, etc.). Encourage them to imagine these events on a pictorial map of their lives.

Post-Visit Activity 1:
As a project, have the students create symbols and design a winter count to map the milestones of their lives. They can use brown paper or part of a paper bag as the background for their winter counts. Ask them to share one “year” of their winter count with the class and to explain the meaning of their symbols.

THE FIRST PEOPLE
DAKOTA NATION
Activity 2

Background-Buffalo Activity
The spirit story of many Native American peoples is especially attached to the white buffalo. The legend of white buffalo calf woman is especially significant to the Dakota people, who call themselves the “Buffalo People”. Although there are many versions of the story as each speaker tells the story slightly differently, they are all considered valued accounts of the greatness of the Dakota Nation.

Pre-Visit Activity 2
Discuss with the students the why they believe buffalo or bison is sacred in Native American culture. If they are unsure, begin to elicit ideas by discussing the role of the eagle as a symbol of the United States-what the eagle stands for in this country. Students can try to find the answer through Internet research--www.tahtonka.com--to start. Lead the students to find the story of white buffalo calf woman. (Sites to find the story include: www.kstrom.net/isk/arvol/buffpipe.html; www.iwchildren.org/Story/trio.htm; www.bluecloud.org/42.html).

Post-Visit Activity 2
Read different versions of the White Buffalo Calf Woman story to the students. Readdress the discussion of the importance to Native Americans, and to people of the Dakota Nation. Next, talk to the students about the topic of oral storytelling. Have the students write out a favorite family story that they like to tell. Then have the students ask a family member to write down or record the same story. Have them analyze how similar they are, if the significant points of the story are told the same, or if the perspective is very different. Post the stories for others to read under the title, “The Story Goes Like This…”