Exploring Maryland

Maryland Indians - A Day In The Life Of...
Teacher's Guide
Written by Diane Roberts

Objectives:

At the completion of this lesson, students will be able to:
  • Students will become aware of similarities and differences between the Indian diet and our diet today.

MSPAP Outcomes and Indicators:

Social Studies, Grades 4-5
People of the Nation and World
  • Examine how people develop cultures through interaction with the environment and with other cultures.

Skills and Processes

  • Obtain, interpret, organize and use print and non-print sources of information such as pictures, graphics, maps, globes, and artifacts.

Reading To Be Informed

  • Students will demonstrate their ability to construct, extend, and examine meaning for a variety of texts by using strategic behavior and integrating both their prior knowledge about reading and topic familiarity.
  • Students will demonstrate their ability to interact with text through four stances; global understanding, developing interpretation, personal reflection/response, and critical stance in order to construct, examine, and extend meaning.

Student Worksheets:

Other Materials Needed:

  • atlas, map of the world

Key Web Sites Referenced in this Lesson:

Introduction:

Ho Nee Qua Tow

Opencanchenko

Extensions

Teacher Background Information:

Anthropologists believe that it may have taken the Indians 7,000 years to reach Maryland from Asia. At the time, North America and Asia were connected. The land bridge was called Beringia. Since the 14th century or before, the Piscataway Indians lived in Maryland. When the colonists arrived in the Americas, the Indians gave them large quantities of beans and corn. The Indians hoped that the colonists would leave their land. The Piscataways and the Maryland colonists were at peace most of the time because they had mutual enemies, the Susequehannock Indians of Virginia.

This lesson is designed to take students through a typical day in the life of an adult Indian. Students follow routine activities as well as some occasional activities. The focus is on food, something which ties peoples of all cultures together because we all eat, share, and enjoy foods no matter where or when we live. This lesson helps students compare and contrast the foods they eat with the foods the Indians of colonial times ate. At the conclusion of the lesson, students design a menu for a day's meals that would be common to Indians and their own contemporaries. The message that students will internalize is that the Indians contributed foods that we still eat and enjoy today.

Lesson Development:

The lesson begins with a general introduction to Maryland Indians. Students review historical maps of Maryland drawn by John Smith to see what tribes were living in various areas of the state, include where they live, in 1608.

The students then select an Indian woman, Ho Nee Qua Tow, or an Indian man, Opencanchenko, with which to spend the day, specifically to observe the diet of the Maryland Indians.

At this point, students need to have the appropriate Worksheet for the Indian character they have selected. The Worksheets are different for the two characters. Students answer questions on the Worksheets as they work through the lesson. An on-going task is to write down all the foods that the Indian man or woman prepares or eats during the day.

Here is an outline of what the day consists for the two main characters:

Ho Nee Qua Tow
  • start of day
  • about the witchott - web site
  • making breakfast
  • tools/utensils - web site
  • gathering berries
  • making pottery - web site
  • gardening / farming
  • gathering oysters
  • preparing the evening meal
  • basket weaving
  • watching lacrosse

Opencanchenko

  • start of day
  • clearing a field
  • eating breakfast
  • making pottery - web site
  • fishing
  • trapping small animals
  • hunting - web site
  • participating in a hunting ceremony
  • end of day

After following their chosen Indian through his or her day, students are asked to use the information from their readings and their Worksheets to complete a graphic organizer. The organizer divides foods listed on the Worksheet into three catagories: foods only they eat; foods that they and the Indians eat; foods that only the Indians ate.

As a final activity, students plan a day's meals using foods which they and the Indians would commonly eat.

Extensions - may also be used for Grades 6 & 7:

  1. Make a flow chart that shows the Indian way of making pottery compared with the way we make pottery today. Write a paragraph that compares the two processes.
  2. Make a piece of pottery the Indian way.
  3. Make a collection of menus or recipes a Maryland Indian from colonial times would have eaten. Design a cover for the collection that shows an awareness of Indian culture.
  4. Reconstruct a tool or utensil that would have been used by the Indians of Maryland. Put it together with tools or utensils made by other students in a museum. mark.

Show Off Your Students Work On The Web:

Select one of the extension projects above. Take pictures with a digital camera and send them to Maryland with PRIDE at schools@pride2.org. Pride Inc. will post your students' work on the Kids' Work portion of the web site.

Additional Web Sites:

Children's Literature/Book References

  • Princess Mary of Maryland, by Nan Hayden Agle, Hatboro, Pa: Tradition Press, 1967

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