Learning about Native Americans

Joshua had a little bit of a cough on Sunday. By Monday morning he was achy, feverish, and complaining that his ears, throat, head and belly hurt. Today was supposed to be our bowling field trip, but we decided to postpone it until Joshua was feeling a little better. He feels good now, still coughing quite a bit, but no other complaints. It is definitely winter in Kodiak and the crud seems to be everywhere.


Today we studied about Native Americans. We learned about many different kinds of Native Americans - long-house people, plains people, and the Natives of Alaska. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind for the kids when they see the pictures of the tee-pees are the Disney-induced images of Pocahontas and Princess Tiger Lilly (from Peter Pan). We looked at many different pictures of Native Americans, including some modern pictures of Native Americans today. Then, of course, we fell back on the fun kindergarten/preschool activity of making feathered headbands.


With just over a week until Thanksgiving, we are trying to talk about being thankful each day. We read one of our Thanksgiving themed books and created a Thankful Tree. Today each of the kids told me one thing they are thankful for. Daniel is thankful for his knees.
In celebration of National Children's Book week - I've been researching more 'chapter books' to read with Joshua. Today we snuggled on the couch and watched Reading Rainbow (on PBS) for inspiration to learn about other books. As luck would have it, today's episode was all about the bowling alley and books related to chain reactions (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie was one of the books...one of our favorites!).

As far as big kid books, I am really not impressed with the books that encourage sass or make fun of smart kids or talk about school as being lame. Last month at the book fair I had the chance to read parts of both the Junie B. Jones and the Captain Underpants series books (I can't figure out why these are so popular). I was not impressed with either set, so for now we are sticking to Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle series, and we have had some luck with E.B. White's books. I'm hoping to spend some time at the library alone this week and investigate more big kid books. Perhaps some C.S. Lewis?