Are you looking for Native American Heritage Month Bulletin Board ideas and other activities for your middle and high school students?

Each November, we commemorate Native American Heritage Month to honor the accomplishments and valuable contributions of Native Americans. The tradition began in 1990 when President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution, officially designating November 1990 as “National American Indian Heritage Month.” This designation laid the foundation for annual proclamations that continue. These proclamations vary in name, like “Native American Heritage Month” and “National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month.” They reaffirm the importance of recognizing and celebrating Native American heritage each year since 1994.

You might be wondering how to find time to celebrate Native American Heritage Month with your students, given the abundance of ELA content and the pressing need to cover a wide range of standards within a limited time frame. In today’s post, I’ll present two straightforward techniques. These techniques will help you integrate Native American Heritage Month into your ELA lessons. This approach ensures the mastery of essential ELA skills and standards.

Interactive Bulletin Boards: Get Your Students Moving and Thinking

Imagine this: a classroom buzzing with excitement. Students are engrossed in lively discussions. Learning goes beyond the confines of textbooks. That’s the magic of interactive bulletin boards, and they’ve been an absolute game-changer in my own teaching journey.

As middle school teachers, we know the struggle of balancing diverse standards and engaging our students. But here’s where interactive bulletin boards come to the rescue. Use them when creating hands-on stations, orchestrating thrilling gallery walks, or simply sparking those “a-ha” moments during discussions.

And here’s the best part, I’ve put in the time to create the perfect Native American Heritage Month bulletin board for you!

Using Native American Heritage Month Posters to Create Engaging Activities

Where do I begin implementing interactive bulletin boards in my middle or high school classroom? That’s a question that I have heard from colleagues and other teachers since I began using these bulletin boards. It may seem a bit intimidating at first, but I promise you it is one of the easiest tools that you can have in your teacher toolkit.

I’m going to share my TOP THREE favorite activities to set up with interactive bulletin boards:

• a traditional Native American Heritage Month bulletin board

• a gallery walk activity

• creating learning stations.

All three of these activities will incorporate movement, student choice, and student collaboration.

Traditional Bulletin Board Set-Up

Are you looking to create a simple bulletin board to introduce your students to influential Native American individuals? These 36 posters and mini-biographies can be used to create an interactive bulletin board that students can view when they enter your classroom or as they pass your classroom if your bulletin board display is outside in the hallway. It doesn’t matter how big or small your bulletin board space is because this kit is completely customizable so you can decide how you want to display this information.

If you decide to create a focus bulletin board that includes the posters and mini-biographies with questions, first decide how your students will interact with it. Plan for this interaction throughout the month. There are many ways that you can use the traditional bulletin board configuration to create meaningful activities with your students. Here are a few suggestions that I have used in the past:

1. Use this as an early finishers activity. Students can go up to the board and learn about the individuals you have included. Ask students to select a quote from one of the posters. Then, have them write a short response about their thoughts on the quote.
2. At the beginning of class, highlight one individual poster with your students. Have them answer the question for that poster. This can easily be your bell ringer routine for November.

Gallery Walk Activities

One of my favorite ways to incorporate the Native American Heritage Month interactive bulletin board kit is to create a gallery walk activity using the posters and mini-biographies. I typically select between 7-10 posters. This creates enough stops on the gallery walk so that students are not crowded. However, you need to consider your classroom size and the number of students that you have in each class when you are preparing this activity. My typical class sizes ranged from 24-30 students per class.

Another important aspect to consider is how you will group students. I suggest creating student duos or trios for this activity. Students will remain with their partner(s) for the duration of this activity. Keeping each group small will cut down on most classroom management issues. It will also allow students to actively participate in the activity and collaborative discussions.

Your next question may be about student accountability. How will you hold your students accountable and have them produce something tangible that you can see their thoughts? This can actually be done in a few different ways.

If you plan to use chart paper to display the poster, mini biography, and discussion questions at each stop on the gallery walk, you can let students leave their collaborative responses. Students can also leave their individual responses on the chart paper. I find that it is most efficient to have students write their thoughts on sticky notes. Then, they can attach them to the chart paper. This setup allows you to collect student responses easily at the end of the class period. You can also reuse the same display for all of your classes.

Students benefit from this method. They can view the discussions and thoughts of classmates who have previously visited this stop. Student groups can see the different perspectives of their classmates. This clarity can lead to deeper discussions on the topic.

An additional method for collecting student responses can be creating a student passport page or a simple worksheet. You can create a simple form that contains a box or space for each gallery walk stop. Students will answer their response to the question on their paper. You can collect these passports at the end of the class period.

As with any group activity where students will be moving around the room and talking, set clear student expectations for behavior and academics. Do this before you begin the gallery walk with your students. The most effective method I’ve found involves working with students at the start of the class period. We create an anchor chart together with clearly defined roles and expectations for the activity. You can use a prompt like “What do successful groups look like?” or “What are the norms/expectations for the gallery walk?”. Give students time to come up with the answer. Then have them do a THINK-PAIR-SHARE to create the class expectations for the activity.

Learning Stations Activity

Using the interactive bulletin board posters in a learning stations activity is another option. Like the gallery walk activity, you can use these posters in endless ways in learning stations. There are countless options to explore. You can create learning stations that only utilize the posters from this kit. You have another option. You can create one or two stations. They can fit into a larger look at Native American Heritage Month using these posters.

You will want to follow the same preparation methods for the learning stations as I outlined for the gallery walk activity above. Decide how you will group students. Determine the focus of each station. Decide how you will hold students accountable. Set the expectations for behavior and academics during the stations activity. In addition to these questions, you will need to decide on a clear focus for each station. What do you want students to do or learn at each station? The great thing is that possibilities are endless for how you can utilize this activity.

I use learning stations with these posters to introduce my students to Native American individuals. This happens before they begin their research project for Native American Heritage Month. Many students are not familiar with contemporary or historical Native American individuals. Visiting the different stations allows them to learn brief information about each individual. This can help them select an individual more easily and be more successful during their research project. In my next blog post, I’ll discuss the different research projects. I have used these for Native American Heritage Month.

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Start Each Day with Native American Heritage Month Bell Ringers

My favorite way to begin class each day during Native American Heritage Month is to introduce my students to a new individual that they will learn about in their bell ringer. These engaging bell ringers are not just another addition to my lesson plan; they’re the key to unlocking a world of understanding, appreciation, and critical thinking. In addition, I am including daily reading and writing practice in my lessons from the moment they begin.

Each bell ringer, featuring a prominent Native American individual, contains an image and a captivating quote, setting the stage for exploration. The mini-biography provides context, while the critical thinking question sparks curiosity and reflection. Students are not only able to express their own thoughts with the bell ringer, but the bell ringers lead to meaningful student conversations and collaboration. I am always amazed by the level of conversations and the differing perspectives that my students bring during these discussions.

By using these month-long bell ringers, you’re not only celebrating Native American Heritage but also igniting a passion for learning that resonates deeply with your students. The best part is that I’ve done all the work for you!

Print and Digital Bell Ringers: No Prep Necessary!

Adding these Native American Heritage Month bell ringers to your daily lessons is as easy as 1-2-3. The bell ringers come in both print and digital formats. The print bell ringers also give you a few printing options (printer-friendly and paper-friendly). The only prep work you have to do is print out the bell ringers and distribute them to your students. Your students do the rest of the work and all the thinking required.

There are also customizable bell ringer options included so that you can change out any questions you need or create differentiated questions to meet the needs of all students in your classroom. In addition, there is also a PPT included that can be used to display the bell ringers on your smart board each day. The PPT especially comes in handy if you want to use one of the paper-friendly printing options that just includes the bell ringer question.

Don’t want to worry about printing out a month’s worth of bell ringers? The digital bellringers are the perfect solution for you! You can add the digital bell ringers to your Google Classroom or other digital classrooms with the click of a button. Students will type their responses on a slide that contains all components of the bell ringer. This is the way that I use the Native American Heritage Month bell ringers with my students.

Just like the print bell ringers, I do include a customizable set of slides that allow you to create your own questions for each bell ringer.

Who is Included in the Bell Ringers?

You may be wondering who has been included in the Native American Heritage Month bell ringers. I have worked tirelessly to include both historical and contemporary Native American individuals. I have included political figures, athletes, scientists, doctors, writers, artists, and more in this bell ringer set so that students can be exposed to a diverse group of individuals. You can find a list of the people included below:

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As we wrap up this blog post about incorporating Native American Heritage Month in your classrooms through the use of bulletin boards and bell ringers, let’s look forward to more ways to ignite curiosity, foster empathy, and deepen our appreciation for the vibrant Native American culture with our students.

In my upcoming blog post, get ready to dive headfirst into four captivating Native American Heritage Month research projects that will give your students the chance to educate their classmates. These projects are not your typical assignments; they are gateways to unlocking vital research skills that our students need while learning more about influential Native American individuals.