Summit first graders are learning about the Sioux of the Great Plains.  Students have discovered that the Sioux Nation was comprised of three main tribes: the Lakota, the Nakota, and the Dakota.  The have learned that the buffalo was extremely important to the Sioux, and they used all of its parts (skin, hair, bones, flesh, and sinew) for either food, shelter, clothing, tools, or weapons.  After reading about the amazing buffalo, students sorted items made from either bones and horns or from hide and sinew. Some of the key terms students have defined include wasna, a kind of beef jerky, parfleche, a bag for storing wasna, and tipis, homes made from buffalo hide that were easy to put together and take apart.  In the coming days, students will begin learning about how Native Americans of the Great Plains used pictographs, or picture writing as a form of communication.  Students will have the opportunity to translate and then create their own pictograph stories.