Our “hybrid” classes worked quite well this week, thanks to the efforts of the admin team, Ki Molly, and Ki Kate. I will say, however, that it was SO good to be back in the forest on Thursday and Friday.
Some of you have not yet signed up for Parent Conferences next week. Please do that as soon as you can. I provided two slots for each conference so that each parent who will be attending can sign up. The 1:00 time could be on campus if you’d prefer it, so if you signed up for one of those slots let me know and I’ll stay at school for the conference.
The approach I took with North America had a nice rhythm to it. Thanks to a wonderful book I found in our library, Turtle Island, and some additional research I did on my own, I was able to guide the students across the continent and show them where the very first humans settled. We time travelled back from 13,000 to 2,000 years and visited the Haida Gwaii canoe builders, the Prairie buffalo hunters, the Pecos cliff dwellers, the Great Lakes people, the more advanced Mayan people, and the Mississippians, who were known for their mounds and towns. The students had the opportunity to draw pictographs on rocks, much like the Pecos people did, and they all tasted pemmican, which almost everyone liked. The response of the one who didn’t like it was, “My taste buds are ruined forever!”
They have drawn some beautiful maps in their main lesson books. Drawing multiple maps of the continent to apply biomes, topography and water systems, and where the first humans settled gave each of them confidence in their drawing/mapping abilities.
We have resumed “journaling” this semester, but are calling it Reflections. They have a section in their Bullet Journals for their reflections. Sometimes they choose to share what they have written. I got permission to share from the two students who wrote the following. The prompt was: Choose one of the groups of early settlers and pretend to be one of the tribe members. Describe your day.
“I wake up. The fire has gone out. I am hungry. I eat some meat and I go outside to catch new food. I go with a hunting group. We chase some buffalo to a cliff. As we chase we throw rocks and they fall off the cliff. Others [at the bottom of the cliff get them ready to eat.]
It is warm but breezy. I start the fire. [We sit around the fire and eat and tell stories.]” (Some of the story got cut off when I took a picture of it. Thus the brackets. I remembered what they had read aloud.)
“It was early in the morning. I had just waked up. I had many chores to do, but that didn’t matter. The first thing I did was to help mama. It was Spring….. I love Spring more than anything. I [planted] beans and corn and helped mama plant and sow seeds. Now the day was over but I was ready for the next one.”
The rest of the class guessed where these two young ones were from, based on their activities. I thought to myself as I heard them reading, “This is so much better than giving them a multiple choice test to see if they were absorbing what I said.”
Because of the increasing content of the lessons, the students are beginning to take a few notes, which means I have had to show them the art of note taking - I didn’t mention doodling, which I do a lot of. They are listening, they are absorbing, and they are holding these ideas in their hearts.
None of them were pleased to hear the story of herding buffalo, so we talked briefly about their necessity to do this, and also the necessity to clear cut thousands of acres of land in the Mississippian forest in order to feed “the three sisters” to all of their people. I emphasized that we now know the consequences of such actions, and we can try to protect the earth from this continuing to happen.
The predicted weather patterns for next week indicate that we can be on campus all week. I will let you know if that changes.
Have a wonderful week. I look forward to seeing you, either live or on the screen, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
Blessings,
Kathee
