Learning about the Woodland Natives

Time to catch up a bit on what's been happening in the classroom. Now that I'm hobbling about rather than wheeling about, things are starting to feel much more like normal. Yay!

This was a very busy afternoon for me. We had just learned about Wampum in our Natives unit and so we needed to make some...ish. I'm sure the natives don't use macaroni. Here are the kids making their wampum necklaces.

See, she did have one. Of course then the last half of the "beads" fell off...and then the string broke. Go figure eh?

After our necklaces we worked on making the classroom more spring like by adding bumblebees to our spring flowers and butterflies and budding branches. Yeesh, who knew that wrapping pipe cleaners around a pencil would be that difficult? But they were all thrilled with the results, even if all those brand new googley eyes keep falling off.

And then it was off into two groups to make native villages out of Popsicle sticks and plasticine. They LOVED doing this! They all sorted themselves into longhouse builders or palisade builders or garden makers and happily went on their ways. I have to say they ended up with some really cool things!

The garden, complete with "The Three Sisters".

Natives. Complete with their loin cloths? :) HA HA!! I just noticed that baby! That isn't a green loin cloth, that's a moss diaper! Oh those kids slay me, that's just too terrific! :)

The pond near the village and natives in their (black) birch bark canoes. We didn't have white plasticine!

A deer! I think..

Native Games

We had a lot of fun with this unit. And the best way to remember things is to do them right? So while we were learning why the natives played some games, we tried to play them as well. In our own fashion of course!

Here they're playing the Peach Pit game. The real game would have peach pits coloured white one side and black on the other. We used counters that were white and red. You get a point if all the "pits" ended up the same colour.

Keeping score

We then headed outside to play some more games. Thankfully Jared's mom was available to help us out because I was still newly on two legs. Below they're playing Chunkey where they had to throw a "spear" through a hoop. It was supposed to help boys in their hunting accuracy and strength.

Oh and lacrosse of course! So they didn't really play a game of lacrosse -- it was all they could do to catch the ball.

This is "Rattlesnake and Hunter". Kind of. One person was the rattlesnake, so they have a rattle and the hunters were supposed to catch the rattlesnake blindfolded. I think all the hunters peeked.

Their favourite was trying out the Dollar store bows and arrows. Not all of them lasted the afternoon.

Cool action shot! He got his spear right through that hoop!

Did you know that sticking out your tongue helps you to catch? It really does, you should try it sometime!

From Plasticine to the Real Thing!

Wow, the kids were excited to come here! It was a brisk but sunny day and we headed off to explore the native village. This was particularly exciting since they knew they were going to be coming and I had been priming them with "when we're at the village you can see..."

Our guide was impressed with the kids too, they were very interested, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Do you know what the fence around the village is called? I enjoyed our guide as well, she really took the time to explain things to the kids, especially when they were in the long house. But we're not there yet, so I'll let you look at the pictures first :)

Talking about the palisade. Oops, gave it away.

They're racing the length of the longhouse. It was a good way for them to see just how big those buildings were.

Ha ha! The mob scene at the entrance to the longhouse.

Taking it all in.

Most kids tried out the pestle thingy, pounding the corn kernels into a powder.

There's our guide in the middle of it all, explaining things to the kids. Wow. Can you imagine living in this?!

This was the first year that I realized that the kids could actually try on the clothing there! Not that they were all that keen on putting it on, I couldn't manage to get anyone to pose for me.

Strange how Jonah's mom wouldn't put Vivienne in there eh? ;)

Fire starters! Fire attempters may be more accurate.

Getting ready to watch the pro at work. She got that fire started in no time!

The firestarter:

She had quite the rapt audience too.

Off to another longhouse to hear the legend of Turtle Island. I was actually enjoying the skeptical looks on their faces as she told how North America was made.

Native games!

The boys loved all the wrestling that they got to do.

Playing Rattlesnake and Hunter.

Preparing for their native necklace making.

We then had lunch and went for a stroll around the wee lake. Needless to say I did not go around the whole lake and even more needless to say they could all go faster than me.

Getting ready for our stroll. I sat upon that bench there and listened to them walk around the lake. Yes, I could hear them every step of the way :) So much for being quiet and finding wildlife as our guide suggested.

:) They were hemmed in with an adult in front and adults behind. No racing around the lake this year!

Mr. Twisty

Class picture...er plus a couple I think :)