Elementary Math

Koluskap's Game Bag
Grade Level:

Primary grades K-2

Subject Areas:

• Language Arts
• Math

Objectives:

• The learner will enhance oral language skills by re-telling basic plot of a legend.
• The learner will complete a rhyming pattern.
• The learner will increase memory skills.
• The learner will imitate, extend, and create a linear pattern.

Technology Equipment and Skills Needed:

• Computer, color printer and Microsoft Word Program
• Ability to recognize icons for copy, paste and print.
• Ability to copy and paste pre-selected pictures and print.

Lesson Overview:

1. Students will listen to a re-telling of the legend "Koluskap's Game Bag."
2. Students will re-tell the legend using visuals or dramatization, focusing on the sequence of events.
3. Students will play Game Bag Rhyme.

Start the game by sitting in a circle on the floor. Begin the rhyme by reciting this lead sentence:

Koluskap opened the bag,
And what went inside?

Complete the rhyme with:

It was a moose
Looking to hide.

The child next to you repeats the rhyme with a new animal. Then he or she repeats all of the animals. Continue the game until everyone has had a turn. The last child, for example, might say:

Koluskap opened the bag,
And what went inside?
It was a rabbit,
a chipmunk,
a bear
a fox
and a moose
Looking to hide.

Working in pairs or small groups, the learners will use duplicated, animal picture cards to copy, extend and create patterns.

Working independently, the learner will use the computer, Microsoft Word and teacher prepared disc to copy and paste animal pictures, creating a pattern. The learner may print his or her completed pattern.

Cultural Content:

Conservation is a responsibility of all humans. Penobscots avoid over-hunting game species.

Koluskap Bags All the Game Animals

Legend Summary

Koluskap tires of hunting for game animals. Grandmother Woodchuck fashions a game bag from her belly hairs and gives it to Koluskap. Acting as a trickster Koluskap deceives the forest animals, causing them all to hide in his game bag. Grandmother Woodchuck expresses her disappointment in Koluskap's lack of conservation of resources in his over-hunting. (For entire story: Attean, Rene. Penobscot Life. Washington, D.C.: Department of Indian Education, 1983)

Other Background Information for Teacher:

Extensions:

1. Game Bag Rhyme can be played using the Penobscot words for the animals. For young children, have each child wear a headband with the picture and its Penobscot name on the band. Children will use the visual cues to help them recall the sequence of animals as well the Penobscot names.
2. Brainstorm and list all the animals that Koluskap might have tricked into his game bag. Each student will take the role of a single animal. Encourage the students to research habitats and behaviors of their animals as they relate to the seasons. Students will each write four diary entries, as their selected animals might record them, on a day from each season. Compile entries into journals, artwork to be included.
3. Read or tell the Ukrainian tale "The Mitten." Students will make comparison charts of that tale to "Koluskap's Game Bag.".
4. Brainstorm what our environment would be like if there were no more forest animals. What would be the effects to food chains?

Assessment:

Performance Assessment Task:
Title: Game Bag
Curriculum Areas: Language Arts and Math

Content Standards/Performance Indicators:

• Math - Recognize, describe, extend, copy and create a wide variety of patterns (G1)
• Language Arts - Understand the basic plot of simple stories. (B1) Draw logical conclusions about what will happen next or how things might have turned out differently in a story. (B2) Recognize characterisic sounds and rhythms of language, including the relationship of sounds and letters. (C2) Make valid observations about the use of words and visual symbols. (C3) Dictate or write stories or essays which convey basic ideas, have sequences that make sense, and develop ideas.(G1)

Brief Description of Task:

• Form - model of a game bag, oral presentation
• Audience - any listening audience
• Topic - sequence and patterns
• Purposes - Use knowledge of sequences and patterns to create a storytelling prop. Use the prop to retell "Koluskap's Game Bag."

You are going to make a game bag to use when telling the legend about Koluskap and the game animals. Make a pattern on the bag. When you have finished making the game bag, you will use it to tell the legend.

Criteria for evaluating student products/performances

• identifiable pattern
• appropriate language in oral expression
• proper sequence in retelling legend
• use of "speaker's voice"

Scoring tool for pattern design

Mathematics Continuum

Scoring Tool for storytelling

Oral Expression Continuum

Pre-Emerging

Storyteller explains the prop.

Emerging

Storyteller tells how the prop applies to the story.
Storyteller retells some of the story events.

Developing

Storyteller tells the story using a recognizable sequence of story events.

Practicing

Storyteller uses rich expressions. Story shows use of sequence of plot, and has a beginning, middle and end. Storyteller uses prop appropriately two or more times during the presentation.