Grade 3/4, Week One

We are doing a split year with Robin this year as he just turned 9 the end of May. We started the year with a 3 week block on Native American Legends. I have divided the legends up by culture so that we can study the various nations that came up with the legends.

To begin, we read a creation story from the book "Keepers of the Night". This was a great intro to the legends and culture. "The Birth of Light" from the Yuchi. It is our only legend from the Southeast cultures.

Our first culture was the Eastern Woodland. We learned about where they lived, thier shelters, clothing, food, games, and a few of the tribes in the culture.

http://www.nativetech.org/scenes/ has some great pages with illustrations.

"Keepers of the Night" has three great legends from the Eastern Woodland cultures.

"How the Bat Came to Be" (Anishinabe)

"The Great LaCrosse Game" (Menominee)

"Oot-Kwah-Tah, the Seven Star Dancers" (Onondaga)

Of course, we had to build a wigwam! Fortunately, we had already grown some sunflowers into a little room so it was no problem to weave them together into a snug little wigwam.

We also did some form drawing based on designs used in the Eastern Woodland culture, and made a little paper canoe.