Teaching Resources
The Institute for American Indian Studies’ Education Department welcomes you to our teacher resources page where you can check out a range of activities, websites, and other information. Many of the activities are aligned with Common Core Standards and are intended for various grade levels. Please feel free to modify the activities to fit your situation. Questions or comments can be directed to [email protected].
Recommended Reading
All Ages
- Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson
- Hartford Currant Articles (see below)
Preschool
- Wild Berries by Julie Flett (Cree-Metis)
- Sweetest Kulu by Celina Kalluk (Inuit)
- My Heart Fills with Happiness by Monique Gray Smith (Cree, Lakota, & Scottish)
- The First Strawberries by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki)
- Thirteen Moons on Turtle Back: A Native American Year of Moons by Joseph Bruchac & Jonathon London (Abenaki)
Early Elementary (K-3)
- Thanks to the Animals by Allen Sockabasin (Passamaquoddy)
- Hungry Johnny by Cheryl Minnema (Ojibwe)
- Hiawatha and the Peacemaker by Robbie Robertson (Mohawk)
- Chukfi Rabbit’s Big Bad Bellyache: A Trickster Tale by Greg Rodgers (Choctaw)
- Jingle Dancer by Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee (Creek)
- Kamik: An Inuit Puppy Story by Donald Uluadluak (Inuit)
- SkySisters by Jan Bourdeau Waboose (Ojibwe)
- Walking Eagle: The Little Comanche Boy by Ana Eulate
- A Day with Yayah by Nicola I. Campbell (Cree-Metis)
- The Legend of Hobbomack: The Sleeping Giant by Jason J. Marchi
Upper Elementary and Middle School Grades (4-7)
- The Man Who Weeps by Dale Carson (Abenaki)
- Hidden Roots by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki)
- The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Chippewa)
- In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall III (Sicangu Lakota)
- How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story by Tim Tingle (Choctaw)
- Trickster: Native Americans Tales: A Graphic Collection Edited by Matt Dembicki (Variety of Native Americans)
High School
- My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson (?)
- If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth (Onondaga)
- Under the Mesquite by Gudalupe Garcia McCall (?)
- Walking on Earth and Touching the Sky: Poetry & Prose by Lakota Youth at Red Cloud Indian School, Edited by Timothy P. McLaughlin (Lakota)
- Keepers of the Earth: Native American Stories & Environmental Activities for Children by Michael J. Caduto & Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki)
- An Indigenous People’s History of The United States for Young People (Revisioning American History for Young People) by Jean Mendoza, Debbie Reese & Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz (Onondaga)
- House of Purple Cedar by Tim Tingle (Choctaw)
- The Lesser Blessed: A Novel by Richard Van Camp (Dogrib)
- Moccasin Thunder: American Indian Stories for Today (Variety of Native Americans)
Collegiate
- Connecticut’s Indigenous Peoples: What Archaeology, History, and Oral Traditions Teach Us About Their Communities and Cultures by Lucianne Lavin
- “All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Aunt Sarah, Woman of the Dawnland: The 108 Winters of an Abenaki Healing Woman by Trudy Ann Parker
- Black Elk Speaks, The Complete Edition by John G. Neihardt with a new introduction by Philip J. Deloria
- Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore by William S. Simmons
- Why You Can’t Teach United States History without American Indians by Susan Sleep-Smith et al.