Native American Fun Friday

It is always such a challenging task to get the wee ones to have any idea about what life might be like without all of the "civilized" things they take for granted.   I tried talking them through how the Native Americans lived...why they had the kind of houses they had, how they made their clothes and everything else they needed and still when I asked where they thought the Native Americans might have lived if they didn't build their house and the answer was, "In their cars."  Yikes....
So, after all of the talking and looking at pictures it was time to start doing.  This group LOVES doing and it is, interestingly enough, when they are the best behaved.
The boys made paper bag vests, with symmetrical geometric designs on the front and our Sun Tribe logo on the back, while the girls made paper bag mantles with the Sun Tribe logo on the front.  You will have to wait to see photos of these.  We will do Pilgrims next week and then "dress" for Thanksgiving dinner together.  They worked quietly and intently.  Ahhh. 
We learned that the Native Americans introduced popcorn to us (and lots of other corn facts).  So, that naturally led to having pop corn for snack.  But, the fun part was letting them watch popcorn pop...and tying in the lessons about water we have just completed and leading into the lesson on the 3 states of water next week.  Stevie brought her vintage electric skillet.  We put it on a sheet that the kids all held up and we watched the popcorn pop...look at those faces.  Wish you could hear the joy, too! 

Here was the set up with the "vintage" electric skillet.

Oooh.  Will it burn me?

Hey, did you see that?

                    

Some high flyin' pop corn!

We did all of this because we learned that one of the ways the Native Americans cooked pop corn was to just throw handfuls into the fire and chase them down as they popped out...oh, and for the fun of it!

Waiting patiently.

Working intently.

 In the afternoon we made models of wigwams (and no one whined about ooey gluey fingers).






We also made Native American Necessary pouches.  They shelled a little corn to put in their pouches. They will be part of the costume next week.



See the Sun Tribe logo?



Really.  Is it time to go home?  I need to rest.

 

They learned about the 3 kinds of corn:
 field, sweet and pop!

The day was a whirlwind.
We also had a nice little discussion about Heaven since one of my little girl's Pap Pap got to go to Heaven yesterday.
Another fun Friday...check!