museum as classroom - 'our universes'

First week in the 'Our Universes' exhibit we discussed some background, common questions, and some misconceptions about Native Americans before moving into the alcove dedicated to the Anishinaabe people.  Below are some of the exhibit signs and displays for those in the class to review and finish drawings.

  

 We also discussed the  traditional roles of male and female elders in the community, men, women, and children.  After class we went to the children's play area, and these are a couple of books for supplemental reading.  The Birchbark House is a story about an Ojibwa girl (another name for Anishinaabe).  Raven is not specific to the Anishinaabe, but looks like a fun trickster tale. 

 

How Raven Stole the Sun is also a book that is mentioned in the intro of the exhibit.  When I looked for it in Amazon, I noticed they also have How Raven Stole the Moon.

dia de los muertos

Last Friday at Scoop, the kids discussed the Day of the Dead - Dia de los Muertos - celebrations that take place in Mexico every year, the night of Nov. 1, in celebration of loved ones and ancestors. They looked at some images of Day of the Dead masks and then worked to create their own drawing of a skull or scene!

Many thanks to my assistant Cathie, and one of the mommas, Zette, who scrounged some materials and pulled off this lesson with the kids while I had a major transportation delay and could not make it in time for class.

words & moves

What I'm trying to get across is that these are not your typical dance & music classes.  Hermione brings some fun games to the mix and the kids enjoy every minute with her.

Just to share a few more snippets of class:

Here they are playing a version of improv freeze dance (no, they are not too old for it, as you can see) where when the music stops they have to jump on a letter.  Then she asks each of them for an adjective that begins with that sound, which she writes down on a list on the wall.  They get really excited and help each other when needed. 

 

Then they have a list of words to play with, and they take turns putting them together in sentences to create a whimsical collaborative story which they each then perform for one another.

      

 

 They also worked to come up with a short rhyming poem about themselves - realistic or fictitious - and performed it on video, dramatizing it with their bodies.  Then they got to watch each of the videos afterwards.  They loved this and were really cracking up and giving each other performance feedback.

 

They finished up with more improv, playing something kinda like musical chairs, except with scattered letters where each round, there was one less letter than the number of people, and they were eliminated one by one.  They were supposed to play fair and not 'hover'...