Materials Needed

1. worksheet : What do you know about Hawaii? (will re-do the worksheet later in lesson.) 2. library 3. banner papers, charts 4. US maps 5. a copy of my Suite101.com article on the queen 6. Writing materials

Preparation 1. Create a worksheet called "What Do You Know About Hawaii?" Include the following questions: A. Write down the words that come to mind when you hear the word Hawaii. B. Write down some facts about Hawaii if you know any. C. When do you think Hawaii became a state? D. Who do you think owned Hawaii before the United States owned it? E. How do you think we got Hawaii? (Bought it? Stole it? Found it? They agreed to join us? Fought a war? Do you have another idea?) F. Where is Hawaii?

2. Prepare a short lesson on how children in a very different culture currently live.

3. Schedule a library visit.

Lesson: 1. Hand out the worksheet: What Do You Know About Hawaii? Instruct the children to answer the questions as best they can, but tell them the papers won't be graded and it's okay to guess. They haven't been taught these things yet and they aren't expected to know the answers.

2. After they have completed the sheets, have them discuss their answers with you. Create statistics of the answers if you like. Perhaps a math lesson of creating visual graphs of survey results can be included. List the words they associate with Hawaii on a large sheet of butcher paper. Save the paper to reuse at the end of the unit. Also save the list of facts they come up with. As they share the facts and words, don't correct them. They will have a chance to decide for themselves which of their facts were right later in the unit.

3. Locate Hawaii on the map. Is it where the students expected it to be? Most maps show it in a separate box with Alaska, so they probably have no clear idea. Find out how far it is from Hawaii to your state. (Math, geography) Is it larger or smaller than your state? If you were going to visit Hawaii, how would you get there?

4. Visit the library to find out facts about Hawaii and to research the history. Try creating a treasure hunt for information or create committees to research various aspects of the history, or the answers to the questions in your first survey. Have the children record where they find each piece of information.

5. When you gather again, ask the children if they now know the answer to the questions you asked at the beginning of the lesson. Re-ask each question, and compare the new answers to the originals. Ask the question about how we got Hawaii last. Did they all come up with the same answer? If not, compare the answers and note the names of the sources that gave each possibility. Also note the year the source was published. Does the age of the source affect the answer? (I found some old textbooks for children that gave a very idealized version of the events, and never suggested we stole the nation.)

6. Read the article I wrote on Suite101.com about Hawaii's only queen. . Ask the children to offer their opinions on the article. How do they feel about what happened in Hawaii? How do they think the Hawaiians felt? Ask them to imagine this happening to their town-imagine that another country came in and stole their town, forcing them to become members of that country. How would they feel? How would their lives change?

7. Assign a writing assignment on the last question. Have them pretend they are Hawaiians who have just had their country taken by the Americans. Or...have them pretend their town has been taken by Japan, for example. You might want to tell them how children in Japan, or whatever country you choose, live, so they understand how their lives would change.

8. There is a movement among natives to return Hawaii to the Hawaiians. The possibilities (follow the links in my article to learn more) include: staying a state, becoming a territory again, or becoming an independent nation. You might want to have older students research this and write an editorial on the subject.

9. Using the gathered information, have the class create a timeline of Hawaiian history.

10. Review the materials created at the start of the unit. What new words would they add to the word list? What new facts would they add? Are there any they would take out? Can they now answer all the questions on the questionnaire?

11. There are many choices for expanding the unit: Pearl Harbor, Hawaiian language and culture, literature, geography...the choices are endless.