Over the past week I have had the opportunity to teach the Native American Exhibit to the Fourth Grade classes that visit us on their field trip.  From this room, I have learned and thus taught about the 3 Sisters (in our garden the corns, beans, and squash), the various tools the Timucuans used made out of bones, sinew, and other animal parts, and the different types of living structures they used throughout the seasons.

The Fourth Graders can be a little wild at times, but I have learned it is all about classroom management.  In my Education Minor we are covering different techniques to keep the students interested in the material as well as how to help them make the leaps and connections without telling them the answers.  In the Native American Exhibit I am having to practice wait times to give the students the opportunity to guess at the answers or lead them to the correct conclusions.  Asking them the question "If these Native Americans in this boat have crops, furs, and jewelry in their boat and they are headed to another island, what might they be going to do?" provokes the correct answer of "Trading with other tribes."  This allows the students to practice their critical thinking skills and realize that the Timucuans were able to produce a surplus and establish a local economy.  After discussing the daily life of the Native Americans we conduct an activity where the students are handed a picture of an animal that is located somewhere around the room; it can be painted on the wall, a skin of the animal, a shell, bones, or even a stuffed representation.  The students are to find their animal and stand near it so that we may survey the room to understand the possible uses of that animal by the Native Americans.

Over all, this experience has provided me with the opportunity to grow as an educator and has proven to me the importance of museum education as a way to introduce students to the topic of Social Sciences before they experience it in the classroom.