Native American Cultures: The Southeast: Birch-bark Canoes and Clay Beads

So I backed up in our Native American Culture studies. I hadn't covered them as thoroughly as I wanted to, or done as many of the projects as I wanted to.  I went all the way back to the Southeast region. We reread the chapter, and I created a vocabulary activity to go with it and had the boys do that and glue it into our notebooks.

Then for a fun activity we made birch-bark canoes. We cut them out of paper and "sewed" up the sides using yarn, but talked about how the Native Americans used animal sinew. Then we melted wax and smeared it to the bottom. I was supposed to use paraffin wax, but I didn't have any on hand, and the thought of dragging five children to Wal-mart for wax made me want to rip my eyeballs out. So instead I just burned a candle during quiet time, and used the pooled wax to smear on the bottom of the boats. It worked, except that we didn't have enough wax to go around, so the entirety of the boats didn't get covered, which means they didn't float as well as the might have otherwise.

BUT, this didn't end up being a bad thing, because we talked about it. Why the boats sank when the water touched the paper, but not the wax. What else might have been done to keep the boats level and floating, etc. So all in all it turned out to be a nice stroll into the scientific method. Sort of. :) The kids were happy, that's all that really matters.

A few days later, we made beads out of clay like the Seminoles. We read about how Seminole women wear so many beaded necklaces that you can't see their necks at all. When the beads dry, we will paint them and string them into bracelets, or maybe necklaces if there are enough beads.

Lincoln is also reading the book Soft Rain by Cornelia Cornelissen, which is about a Cherokee girl who has to walk the Trail of Tears with her family. He's not super thrilled about it, because it isn't "his kind of book", but oh well. :) It's not along, and it goes with our unit.

Other Stuff

 I feel like I'm so far behind on blogging. May is about the craziest month that ever was, and we're not slowing down at all as we head into summer. But there are a few things I wanted to document, so sorry they are random and in no real order.

We've still been managing to squeeze some school into the cracks of our days. We did an awesome peacock art project. I thought Adelia's turned out especially cool.

Lincoln has been going to swim clinic every Saturday all through spring in preparation for summer swim team. He made the team and I am proud of him! He's been working hard and learning a lot, and hopefully having some fun along the way. We are all excited to be his biggest fans at the swim meets this summer.

 I finally figured out how to wear a hat with short hair and not look like a boy! Yay! Just in time for our up-coming vacation to South Dakota too. I've had this hat forever, and I love it, but I never wear it because of my short hair. But I tried it out again, and just cocked it back a little so it doesn't come so far down over my forehead, and I think it totally works!

Ollie has been keeping me on my toes. He's figured out how to open doors, which means all bathrooms are now a magical toddler play land. Ugg! I don't have time for these kinds of shenanigans. Seriously! I'm behind enough as it is. 

We've been experimenting with starting Rue on solids. I'm not a big fan of solids, to be honest. It's just more mess and more work, and it's not very portable. But she did well. She didn't puke on me, at least. Although, I'm not so sure she was a big fan of the rice cereal either. Maybe we'll just wait it out some more. No rush, right?

The boys are starting baseball in June, they'll be playing coach pitch this year. I may or may not have mussed Ivan's grade level so that he and Lincoln could be on the same team. Adelia is playing kickball too, and I really don't want to be going to six games a week for all of June. Ain't no one got time for that! Besides, if Ivan plays up with the big kids, he'll just get better. Win win. Anyways, I coerced Ivan and a neighbor kid to play baseball with me the other day. The neighbor kid was all for it, Ivan had to be talked into it. Lincoln wanted nothing to do with it, and went inside. Someday my love of baseball will rub off on my children. Ollie was into it though. Maybe he'll be my ballplayer. 

Now that May is half over, here are Rue's five month old shots that I took of her at the beginning of the month. She's cute.

Did I mention we still do school sometimes? Only sometimes...haha! But here is our lesson on The Pacific Northwest Native Americans. We built candy totem poles. Actually, I feel like I've really let the last few lessons slide. I'm not happy with my lack of effort that I've put in, we haven't done nearly the amount of reading that I want, nor the vocab. And I wouldn't even mind doing a few more projects. So maybe I'll be doing a redo on Native American Cultures with my kids over the summer. We'll see how it goes.

This one is Adelia's. We never quite got it to stand up.

 They've been doing a bunch of construction in our neighborhood because they are building a new elementary school. One Sunday we took a walk over to the construction site to check it out.

Baby Rue asleep in her bouncer. Funny girl.

And Ivan wanted to document that he build this super awesome Trio castle. Good job Ivan.

School Days...

Wynter and I have been History and Science-ing up a storm. I just haven't posted about it. We studied the Great Plains tribes in Native American Cultures this week. The kids each made tipis. It was short and sweet, and still fun. :)

Wynter has been doing some fun things with the moon the last few weeks, including the phases of the moon in Oreos. Yum!

And, Adelia's preschool class went on a fieldtrip to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. The boys and Rue and I tagged along.

This is Adelia and her buddy Brynlie. They are so cute, whenever they see each other they run together and give each other a hug. How did I ever get to be raising such a girl? Haha! I hate hugging people. But whatev...Del's all over it. :) 

Native American Cultures: Southwest and Mesoamerican Region: Sand Drawing

I was using food coloring, and cornmeal, so of course I was expecting a gigantic mess. But my history class surprised me by doing really well with our art project today and keeping disaster to a non-existent minimum.

We learned about the Native Americans of the Southwest and Mesoamerican region today. The kids were great listeners today, and we covered the necessary educational material really quickly and glued some things into our notebooks. I try to do a little chart about each region, so the kids can see how the regions were similar and how they were different. I also try to find a few famous people from each region and talk about what they were famous for. And I like to put in a picture of how the tribes in each region dressed. Mostly I'm attempting to teach the kids that not all Native American's hunted buffalo and lived in tee-pees.

Our project this week was really fun. Medicine Men in the region used sand drawings to try and get bad spirits to go away. They did their drawings on the floors of homes, but we did ours on paper. :) I gave each kid a smallish  card stock rectangle and had them lightly draw a picture of something in pencil. Then, using paint brushes, the would brush glue onto a small section of their picture. Next they sprinkled colored cornmeal over the top, and then shake it off again. The cornmeal would stick to the glued spots, but not to the dry spots. They could brush glue on another spot and use a different color of cornmeal, creating fun sand drawings.

Native America Cultures: Southeast Region: Booger Masks

This week for history we study the culture of the Southeastern Native Americans. We talked about the different tribes that lived in the Southeast, their houses, clothing, food, beliefs and games. We learned about a Cherokee man named Sequoyah who made a Cherokee alphabet. And we looked at the influences Europeans had on the tribes when they came to the continent.

For our activity we made Booger Masks. These masks were worn before a hunt to inspire a successful hunting trip.

Native American Cultures: Northeastern Woodlands

This semester my friend Wynter and I are teaming up again to teach History and Science. She's doing Space and I am doing Native American Cultures. I'm using the book Explore Native American Cultures! as a guide and for ideas for activities.

The first week, I did an introduction to what Native Americans are, where they came from, and the different regions that they lived in. We made a salt dough map of the United States, and painted each region of different color, and labeled them. In the subsequent weeks, we'll take turns studying each region individually.

The second week that it was my turn to teach, we learned about the Northeastern Woodland region. Since we only meet for History twice a month, it's not possible to do all the activities with the class. But because I think this is an interesting topic, I've expanded it a bit and am doing extra things at home with just my kids to go along with what we learn in History class. The last two weeks I've been reading Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare for family read aloud time. The boys are really liking it. We should finish up in the next day or two.

I think it's beneficial for them to see the vocabulary words we've been learning about for class being used in a story, and vice-versa. I made a crossword puzzle out of all the vocab words in the Northeastern Woodlands chapter, and told the kids if they did the reading and completed the crossword puzzle before class, that I would give them a treat. I assigned Lincoln and Ivan to pair up and work together. And it was fun to hear them say things like, "Our word is moccasin, oh! like the ones Attean's grandfather make for Matt in the story." Connections are being made, and that makes me feel like the work has been worthwhile.

Another day the boys made longhouses as a project. They decided that gluing straw all along the sides was a lot of work, and they weren't super interested in completing it. But they were very excited to tell their friends everything they knew about longhouses when it came up in class. :)

I actually really enjoyed the prep work for class this week. I felt like I learned a lot of cool things on an interesting topic. I knew the kids wouldn't be overly thrilled about writing down everything I wanted to share with them, so I made the a little printable to cut out and glue into their notebooks. And then we talked about the culture and customs of the Northeastern Woodland tribes, and then I told them about some of the well-known Native American people from that region. Turns out Wynter is a descendant of Pocahontas. Cool!

After the lesson we made Hiawatha Belts. The five shapes on the belt represent the five tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy, the tree in the middle is the tribe whose land was in the middle and where all the tribes came together and buried their war weapons and agreed to be peaceful to one another.

Next up, Southeast region.