Montana Lesson Plans

Montana is going to be a very short lesson for us. Ellie has been sick for 4 days so we still need to finish up South Dakota plus we have plans for a picnic with friends and a scout meeting this week. So we will only be spending 3 days on Monday: 1 social studies day, 1 science day, and 1 general review/overview day.Social Studies (Tuesday)Intro to Glacier National Park: Glacier National Park is in northwestern Montana, along the border with Canada. You can see glaciers along the Going-to-the-Sun Highway, which runs through Glacier National Park. But what are glaciers?Read Icebergs, Ice Caps, and Glaciers (Rookie Read-About Science) by Allan Fowler.Prior to activity, freeze gravel and small rocks into ice blocks so they will have a rough bottom when they start to melt. Visit a sand box and have kids form mountains and river valleys in the sand. Have the kids draw a picture of the way the valley floor looks before a glacier comes through. Use the ice blocks with the gravel and rock side down to slowly bulldoze a path down the river valley. You should be able to see gouging and land changes taking place in the sand as the glacier moves. Have kids draw the the valley floor after the glacier went through. What changes took place?Explain that the same way our minutes glaciers changed their valley, real glaciers changed the land that we live in. The Appalachians are a prime example of rounded mountains from when ice scraped over them thousands of years ago. Sharp pointed peaks are a giveaway to where the ice level was; if a peak is still jagged then a portion of it always remained above ice line. Use map key to identify different land forms while completing Daily Geography lesson, week 5.Science: Group lesson with girl scouts following the Fossils and Dinosaurs Lesson Plan .