During-Visit Activities

Grades K-2

If a Tree Could See .
Over many generations, Native Americans of this region gathered under an enormous Oak tree for various important occasions.  The tree became widely known as the Council Oak. Before a visit to Natives and Newcomers students and teachers might talk about what different things may have happened near a tree that was growing to be nearly 300 years old! What might the tree have “seen” 200 years ago, 100 years ago, or just a little while ago?  Then during your visit, see the beautiful carving of Chief Winameg and the boy Dresden Howard in our Museum, which was made from the Council Oak after its death. The remaining section of the Council Oak is also on display in this indoor portion of The Great Black Swamp Exhibit.

(Time sequence or timeline activity) (Long ago, Recently, Present time)

What Could You Use This For?

Before a visit to Natives and Newcomers, help children brainstorm the various ways that a certain material was used by people in the early 1800’s. Then, during or after your visit, count or list the many ways that wood is being used.  What about other plants, or what about animal fur? How did the Native Americans use a resource differently than the silversmith and gunsmith in the Trading Post? (Resource Use)

Grades 3-5

A Very Long Trip.
Ask students how long a very long trip lasts? What long trips have they taken?

Why did European immigrants decide to take the long trip to America? After identifying such reasons as agriculture, manufacturing, and political or religious freedom, ask students to brainstorm how going to a brand new place might help people improve these types of situations.
(Explain the reasons people came to Ohio)
(Identify possible cause and effect relationships)

Discuss with students what it would be like to leave everything you knew to go to a new home. How would you feel? What would the trip be like? Most immigrants came in steerage class on a long boat ride. What would it be like to finally arrive in a new land with no home, no friends and no job?
Ask students to role play an immigrant of their own age. Write a letter to a friend in Europe describing both the journey, as well as life in their new home. How would food be obtained? How would meals be cooked? What would the first shelters built probably be like? How would it feel to start all over?
(Compare reasons for immigration to the reality immigrants experienced upon arrival.)

Which is your favorite?
As they explore the Historic Village, point out to students the differences in the various historic structures. Ask students to keep track of which are their favorites and why. This could be shared and discussed after your visit.

How do the outside of buildings differ? How does the construction of the Historic Homes change from one time period to another? What about items inside the buildings such as cooking utensils, entertainment, furniture? What do these changes tell us about the development of the area?
(Describe changes in the community over time architecture, transportation, technology, recreation.)

What do we NEED?  What do we WANT? How did THEY get it? . . .
Guide the class in making a list of needs and wants. Ask students to predict how those items would be obtained in a community in the 1800s or early 1900s. While visiting the Historic Village, help students discover how the items were made, or where they came from. Some items might include: mittens, eggs, cloth, clothes, pans and dishes, butter, cheese, door latches, water buckets, candle holders, lamps.
(Identify people who purchase goods and services as consumers and people who make goods or provide services as producers.)

Are we having FUN yet?
One hundred years from now, what artifacts will historians find that show how we have fun? What household items do your students identify as fun? While exploring the Historic Residences, have a student in each group be responsible for finding ways that people of the past entertained themselves. How many musical instruments, stereoscopes, and toys can they find?
(Describe cultural practices and products)

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Ask students to compare methods of communication found in the Historic Village to those of today. How was information distributed before the era of television and daily newspapers? There are many modes of communication represented throughout the Historic Village. Don’t forget oral, written, and mechanical methods. (Extra Credit: How did the depot workers communicate with passing trains?)
(Identify systems of communication used to move ideas from place to place.)

Are we there yet?
It may have taken a little longer, but several ways of getting from place to place can be found throughout the Historic Village. How many transportation methods can your students locate? Analyze how advances in transportation would impact the development of the region. (Extra Credit: Why did some wagons pulled behind animals have solid wheels instead of ones with spokes in them?)

(Identify systems of transportation)
(Explain how canals and railroads changed settlement patterns in Ohio.) 
(Explain the impact of settlement, industrialization, and transportation on the expansion of the United States.)

A Time for Worship.
Worship was very important to the Black Swamp families of all denominations. How long was the typical church service? Did families go only to hear the sermon? How was activity on the Sabbath different than in many of the communities of today?
(Compare or Describe Cultural Practices)

Make a Grocery List.
Make a list of things you could purchase at a general store in the 1880s. If you didn’t have any money, how might you pay for the things you needed? The General Store was also the place to pick up your mail. How is this different from a modern post office? How did the arrival of train service to this region in the 1850s impact the type of goods you could buy, how you bought them and where you bought them?
(Describe Cultural Practices and Products)

Are we going to school on our field trip?
What do the two schools in the Historic Village tell you about life in Black Swamp communities in the 1800s? Have groups make lists of similarities and differences that they find here in comparison to their own schools. Or, ask students to compare the two schools in the Historic Village to each other.

(Describe changes in the community over time.)
(Describe cultural practices and products of various groups who have settled in Ohio over time: European immigrants.)

Time to go Work!
In the 1800s and early 1900s students usually did not go to school to learn a craft or a trade. Instead, they became an apprentice to a working craftsman who would teach what he knew while the student worked for him. During or after your day at the Historic Village, ask students to pick one of the craftspeople to whom they would like to have been apprenticed. After the visit, students can draw, or describe in written form, some of the objects they would make. What were the steps involved in making the object?
(Describe changes in the community over time including changes in... Businesses, Employment, Education.)

Where Did This Carving Come From?
The life-like carving on display in the indoor portion of our exhibit was made from a tree known as the Council Oak. Over the tree’s life of nearly 300 years, this White Oak served as both a social gathering place and a place to conduct important business for Native Americans of this area. Before a visit, students could learn about Oak trees. How long do they live? How large do they get? Where do they grow? What would make this tree distinguishable from other trees? The Council Oak Carving and a surviving section of the tree will be of interest to your group during your visit.

If a Tree Could Talk . . .
After a visit, students or entire classes might write a story describing what they think may be happening in the Council Oak carving. Through describing the relationship between Dresden Howard and Chief Winameg, students can explore the effects of the meeting of Ohio’s Natives and its Newcomers.(Impact of European expansion / Cause and effects of Ohio frontier wars)

How is That Old Flag Different From Our Flag?
During your visit, have student groups describe the flag flying over the trading post. After the visit research why it looks that way. How and why is it different from today’s flag?
(Recognize symbols of the United States; flag)

How Did They Do That?
Help students to make predictions about what they will see in Native American homes of the 19th century. What would Ohio Indians have worn? What would they have eaten? What did they make their homes out of, and how did they travel? What kinds of items did they make with their hands in order to make their lives easier or more comfortable? Students can then compare their predictions to what they learn at Natives and Newcomers.(Cultural practices and productsof groups who lived in the local community.)

How Do We Know That Really Happened?
Useprimary and secondary sourcesto show students the different ways that weanswer questions about Ohio history.

Grades 6-8 

What’s Up With That Flag?
Why does the Trading Post flag look that way? Guide students in discovering the years when the flag actually did look that way? How many flags have there been since 1776? Which one was the first to have at least 17 stars after Ohio became the 17th state?

(United States symbols)

Same Time, Different Stories
Have students create timelines comparing the dates of significant events related to Native American history to other areas of American history. Use our timeline exhibit as a way to begin their activity, or as feedback after their timelines are completed. (Compare two subjects during the same years, for example, Indian Removal and Major Inventions, or Indian Removal and United States Presidents.) (Analyze . . . treaties, land acquisition, Indian removal) (Multiple-tier Timeline)

Take a Walk In Someone Else’s Shoes
Encourage students to use their visit here, along with their other studies, to attempt to look at both the Native and Newcomer cultures from different perspectives that they have learned or read about. Different students might answer the same questions about Natives and Newcomers from different perspectives (Native, French, English, American, trader, surveyor, soldier, governor, settler). (Analyze different perspectives from multiple sources, fiction and non-fiction)

What’s the Big Deal About a Beaver, Anyway?
Consider a research activity for students to begin with a visit to Natives and Newcomers. Find out how and where a beaver, which had been successfully hunted by Native Americans, would be used. Research its uses by Native Americans before the arrival of a trading post. Other research might trace the path that the beaver skin would take after the trader moved into the area and traded with the Native Americans for beaver fur. (Discuss how mercantilism led to increased trade.)

Grade 9-12

“Where today are the Pequot . . the Narragansett, the Mohican. -Tecumseh
Ask students to locate where tribes once lived in your local area, or in the Northwest Territory. To where were they later removed?  A portion of this activity could be a map use activity. (Analyze results of oppression . . . exploitation of indigenous peoples)
During your visit, a further activity could be to identify, or to make note of, Cultural Practices that were lost in northwest Ohio from 1803-1839.

“We want people to realize that Native Americans are a living people with a history, not just people from history. “-Daryl Baldwin
Ask your students to find aspects of today’s Native American cultures on our timeline exhibit.

As a further activity, students might do biographical research about Native Americans who have made, or continue to make, various outstanding contributions to society?  Or, students might research where various Native Nations are located today.  How are today’s tribal governments organized? (Political, Economic, Social effects of our nation’s multicultural diversity)

You Grade the Government!
Guide students in locating and/or provide copies of documents such as the Northwest Ordinance, Greenville Treaty, Treaty of St. Marys, the Indian Removal Act, and even Presidential letters. Classes could use these documents, the Natives and Newcomers Exhibit, and their other studies to analyze these policies and their effects on the daily lives of Native Americans. (Analyze government policy and effects on groups. Indian policies)