Meanwhile

I'm taking this term of 11 weeks to have a great time teaching the kids all about America! I spent Term 1 warming them up (and following the plans of my colleagues) with studies about Australian Animals (guess who was cramming each night?? Ask me about any marsupial!). Now it's time to shake things up a bit!

There are so many parallels to the Aboriginal culture, and with many children and families in our school and town, it makes sense to tag any new information onto what they already know.

I began with a study of the continent of North America. We counted in French while we colored the Canadian flag, we sang "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" while we found Oregon on the U.S. map, and we ate chips and salsa while we studied photos of beautiful Mexico.

Then we learned about the Plains Indians and made stick games to play. We watched my slide show on Mesa Verde and made guesses as to what happened to the Anasazi tribes. We finished the week by making corn chowder.

This week we are finishing our discussions about the pilgrims coming over and the stresses that came with that. For the first time since my student teacher days in Kinder, we're making paper pilgrim hats, feather headbands and sitting down to a feast we will prepare over the next two days of stuffing, yams, mashed potatoes, and a small turkey chunk for taste (turkey is very difficult to come by here - read $$$). We'll be making Thanksgiving cards writing about the things we are thankful for. The good news is, it all fits into the curriculum! We're writing procedural accounts of the recipes and cooking processes. We're mapping like crazy. We're discussing folk tales/dreamtime stories and researching regional housing.

We've even painted pictures in the same style as the beautiful pictures in the Song Book, "America The Beautiful." Out in the hall the kids will look up at the display and exclaim, "There's mine! Amber waves of grain!" "See my spacious skies??"

In the next weeks we will be exploring Oregon and the states, with a final extravaganza of country line dancing and cheerleading for all the school! Wish me luck - mostly on the cheerleading . . .