Montana: Stories of the Land

Chapter 8 - Livestock and the Open Range, 1850 - 1887

Educational Trunks

Woolies and Whinnies: The Sheep and Cattle Industry in Montana from the Montana Historical Society. This trunk reveals the fascinating stories of cattle, horse, and sheep ranching in Montana, 1870 to 1920.

The Grant-Kohrs Ranch Traveling Trunk, from Grant-Kohrs Ranch. This trunk focuses on cattlemen, cowboys, and cattle drives and includes period photographs, reproduction clothing, a videotape on Grant-Kohrs Ranch, books, and a teacher's guide with grade-specific activities.

Takeaways

Inspired by reading specialist Tammy Elser, who was in turn inspired by SKC graduate Taylor Crawford, we've created a "Takeaway" bookmark for every chapter of Montana: Stories of the Land. Before starting a chapter, print and cut out these bookmarks and distribute them to your students. Ask them to use the Takeaway to summarize the GIST of what they learn from reading assigned sections of the chapter. Remind them that they don't have much room, so they'll need to think before they write down the most important idea they want to take away from the section. Learn a little more about the GIST strategy.

Even though we've created Takeaways for every chapter, we don't recommend you have your students complete a Takeaway for every section of every chapter they read. That would be exceedingly tedious. However, used appropriately, they can be a useful tool for encouraging reflection and teaching students how to summarize information.

Websites and Online Lesson Plans

Montana's Charlie Russell Created by the Montana Historical Society to help you bring the Cowboy Artist to your classroom, Montana's Charlie Russell includes eight lessons aligned to the Montana Common Core, Art and Social Studies Standards: biographical PowerPoints (one designed for elementary students, the other for upper grades): and images of sixteen Russell paintings, letters, and sculptures.

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site has a lesson plan on brands: What Brand Are You?

The Montana Historical Society has scanned brand records from 1873 through 1991, and has made the information available through the Montana Memory Project. A brief article "Livestock Brands in Montana,"  published on the Montana Historical Society's "History Compass," offers information about the brand records--including a little about how to search and read them. A more thorough, and very easy to read article on decoding livestock brands is here.

The Montana Arts Council has the information you need to embark on a unit on cowboy poetry.

The website PBS created to accompany its series The West includes good general and background information on cowboys.
 

Videos or DVDs

Evelyn Cameron: Pictures from a Worthy Life - 57 minutes. 

The Last Stronghold: The Miles City Bucking Horse Sale, Montana PBS - 30 minutes.

Possible Fieldtrips

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site, near Deer Lodge

C. M. Russell Museum, Great Falls 

Montana Historical Society McKay Gallery of C. M. Russell Art, Helena 

Range Riders Museum, Miles City 
 

Alignment to Content Standards and Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians (EU)

Tests and Answer Keys