Elemental Meridian

This week we had a lot to do! We read another Chapter from The Trail of Tears while the students ‘finger knitted.’ You might wonder why that’s in parenthesis. If so, it’s because mostly they didn’t knit but wound the yarn around things. Finger knitting is challenging to learn and my champion today was Graham, he really had the hang of it for a little while! Next time I’m lining them up for hand washing first, yarn and leftover lunch is a bad combo. Hah!

The little people drew their quilt squares for the week. I think they all drew mountains this time. I brought in my banjo, which I am *just* learning how to play. We use it for She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain. Elsa and Dawson both enjoyed plinking the strings and I let Elsa sit and play it. She was trapped under there because it’s so big!

We are having a great time in class. The children are working hard and are a bunch of fun. 

Chapter 3 never phased me when I read it aloud to my then 7-year old child. Upon reading for class this week, I worried a bit…you see, Granpa compares Lady McBeth to a doe in heat who could not find a buck. It seems the doe went plumb crazy, running into trees and finally drowned in the creek of heat-sickness. Well then. Fortunately no questions were raised on this topic in class, though I would have offered the farmhand’s simple answer if had been.

3 of the students led a section of class today. Sarah led the Q&A portion, Benny led the Parts of Speech portion and Rachael did vocabulary. Martina read the first stanza of a poem so that we could learn the rhyme scheme, (ababccbdd).

For our ‘craft’ today the kids split into groups of 2 and wrote murder ballads. The Big Rule was that they had to murder something funny. Benny and Stephen, predictably, wrote a murder ballad about an eel. Benny did a great job of puppeteering the eel when he recited. Martina and Sarah wrote about murdering Siri because she wouldn’t stop singing the latitude and longitude song from Rosemary’s class. Rachael and Lauren wrote about murdering a shoe. A blue shoe. Hah!

Then they all arted it up and made their quilt blocks for the week. There is some very nice art work coming out of these kids! 

Looking forward to next week.

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This week was Chapter 2 in our novel. The kids all read it and were great in class, going right into the study guide questions and vocabulary as it pertains to our readings. Many of the vocab words have a more obscure definition as they relate to the book than the words may have in common usage, ‘fork’, for example is about a divergence in a pathway and not an eating utensil. Most of the vocabulary words are listed in order to familiarize the students with the language in common use then, when Little Tree is set, and also now as the usage has often survived the intervening years. Another example would be ‘branch.’ Normally something on a tree, in the mountains it is also the word for a small creek.

In Chapter 2, Little Tree learns about foraging and hunting from Granpa. Today our class talked about wild foods and went outside for a look around at the church yard and the sky and water around the Hague. I showed them some edible plants and many, actually most, of the children already knew quite a bit about what was edible and what wasn’t. I am far from expert but know more than the average lay-person about our flora. Then I pointed up and said, ‘What are they?” ‘They” were seagulls. Made of meat, they reproduce by laying eggs, all wild food! Ducks, geese, fish, crabs, seaweed (Martina figured this one out and I was proud).

Back in class the students began working on ‘quilt squares’. This will be our project for exhibition and carrying home on the last day of the semester. Each week the students will complete one rectangle, on card stock, of their quilt. The squares are pertinent to what we’re doing in class and the chapter of Little Tree for the week but they do have a great deal of creative license. Most of the class took as long as they had to complete their squares and the artwork was impressive. I’m excited to see how engaged the students are with creating visual art that connects with the text and the folkway for the week.

See you next week!

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Sometimes I am distracted by how cute these guys are! I swear a more outgoing, fun, intelligent group of little people couldn’t be found anywhere.

Today we read two chapters from Joseph Bruchac’s, The Trail of Tears. I was actually surprised by how attentive the kids were this week. They listened to the story, which is really a history lesson, and had great things to note when we discussed it. This is difficult subject matter but the reader is designed for small children, so we should be okay. Anyway, we read about John Ross in story form in Chapter 1, then about the history and back story in Chapter 2. It was like American History in a teaspoon.

The children understood that the Cherokee were forced out and had to go without proper provisions. I asked if they thought the people might have found food along the way and thus led them into a discussion about wild foods and foraging. We bundled up and went outside to look at and talk about some different wild foods that we could eat. I managed to keep most of them from consuming anything out of fear of the urban animals that use our church yard as a potty, more than any fear of misidentifying chickweed or a pine tree. A couple had to sample things though.

When they were focused in on the plants I started pointing out other things like geese, seagulls and the water, where there would be fish, shellfish and seaweed. The kids, once I pointed them in the right direction, really came up with great answers about what they may be able to eat from the ground, sky and water. I was very proud of Graham for mentioning seaweed. That seemed to me like the most difficult one.

We went through the first verse of She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain this week. I’m going to teach them the old-school version in which they whack the old red rooster because I hate overly PC things that rob the flavor from the original versions of songs, poem and fairy tales BUT if you want to, you can show them this video by the Wiggles in all its grown-man riding a stuffed pony and acting like a small child PC glory.

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The children read Chapter 1 in The Education of Little Tree for class this week. In our study guides there are questions to help focus them on the chapter at hand and also to be sure they understand what’s going on in the novel. This week’s chapter was a bit sad as we addressed a child who was orphaned and went home with his grandparents, and their poor treatment by others because of racial prejudice against Indians but there is also a strong overtone of hope and love to carry the reader through to the next chapter.

In-class we also covered the week’s vocabulary and will continue to do so. Some of the words have different definitions or contextual meanings and I want to be certain that the students understand the vocabulary as it is used in the novel.

Little Tree’s grandparents lived in a ‘dog trot’ cabin. Once class work was over, the kids wanted to know how they were going to build a cabin. There were some really strong looks of dread! How on EARTH were we to build a LOG CABIN in that tiny little classroom? Eventually Lauren suggested that Lincoln Logs might be a good idea and so I pulled out the can and broke the students into groups of 3. The all-girl group worked really well and constructed a fine dog-trot cabin complete with people inside in their allotted time. The other group had to tear down and rebuild several times (and part of this was the scarcity of materials) but in the end they, too, had built a very nice dog trot log cabin.

I am really looking forward to teaching this class every week. The subject matter is fascinating and the novel, while topically difficult, is also beautifully written and a cultural must-read. The kids? Awesome.

You can find the study guide for this class here, on Lulu. There are other fine study guides available and mine is really a compilation of pictures and text from online sources (all credited), vocabulary from the novel The Education of Little Tree, memorization work from classic texts mentioned in the novel and questions and craft/activity ideas for each week from my own idea of what is important and age-appropriate.

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This week we opened class by introducing ourselves and trying to make our new students feel welcome. After perusing my book shelves I decided that we will not only read the Jack Tales but also some other books about Appalachian culture. All in story form. The plan is to spend our time each week with a story and taking off from that story, to do an activity or craft that teaches them something about the lifeways of the mountain culture.

The story we read was Georgia Music, by Helen V. Griffith. Georgia Music is not set specifically in the Appalachians but it is a very good opening story about how folks live there. Not one of the children remembered one single thing about the book once I’d read it. We’ll have to work on that this week by changing the seating around.

The Grandpa in Georgia Music lives in a log cabin and when his granddaughter comes to visit, she ends up staying the whole summer with him. They grow a garden and listen to the sounds of nature while napping under a big, old tree in the yard. Grandpa plays a ‘mouth harp’. Part of the reason I chose this particular story is that I thought it would go nicely on the first day for those children who are both in Appalachian Choir and in my class.

Then we got to the active part! The children built log cabins from Lincoln Logs. The boys built a cabin, Meg built a cabin, the other girls built a pasture, barn and named all of the horses. I think girls are just wired to love horses.

Then we learned, or rather I sang (and I’m no singer!) the first two verses of She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.

Even with all of that, we finished up a little bit early! I will work that out next week and make sure to keep them busy for that extra five or ten minutes. One thing I’m going to do is an opening and closing circle. All of the kids in my previous classes have enjoyed the circle time and it gives a definite opening and closing to our class. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again next week!