So Much Fun, It's Spooky!

Last Wednesday was spook-tacular!!! It was a  hauntingly happy Halloween parade and fabulous fall festival. 

What a topsy-turvy week it was in Junior Kindergarten.  Yet, we always have fun in learning.  This Thursday the children embarked upon a journey into the past, discovering the people and the way of life of the Seminole. We had a wonderful class discussion about what life would have been like before there were department and grocery stores, cars and other public transportation methods, custom built homes, etc. when people lived off the land.

The children offered sound ideas about growing and gathering food, hunting and fishing, weaving and sewing clothing from animal skins and thread made from plants and animals.  They decided

that tools could be made from sticks, stones and shells, as well as other materials found on the beach and across the land.  As a class we went on our own hunting and gathering party.  We hunted for leaves, palms, sticks, and pine needles to gather and take back to our classroom.  The children were interested in researching on the computer the homes that the Seminole built in the Everglades. The homes were called chickees.  The children pasted the natural objects they gathered to brown paper to create the roof of the chickee we "built" in our exploratorium.  We have transformed our exploratorium into what we imagine a Seminole village may have been like long ago.  This is always a very special unit of study.  Hope you will come along on this learning journey of the Seminole with us and enjoy it as much a we do.

A real Seminole Chickee!

making the roof for OUR chickee

weaving 

grinding corn and cooking vegetables over an open fire

pulling kernels from the full ear of corn (a great fine motor activity) and grinding it using a mortar and pestle

dressing up

making pesto from the basil we grew in our very own garden

The children were amazed at how natural objects such as berries, leaves and flowers could be used to dye fabrics.  They used hammers and safety glasses, but we discussed how the Seminole probably would have used sticks, rocks, and maybe even large shells to pound these things into a paint-like pulp for dyeing objects, thread, yarn and creating works of art.

Beautiful!

Stay tuned for more living off the land learning with the Seminole this month.

Dates to remember:

November 8...Poetry in the Park 8:30am

November 13.....Field trip to Weedon Island

November 16....Children's Thanksgiving Feast

Have a wonderful week!