Native Americans

I miserably failed this unit. MISERABLY. I could have done so many really cute things but I didn't.  First of all we read a ton of books about the pilgrims and Thanksgiving. That (and my assignment to run a Native American themed Pack Meeting) gave me the brilliant idea of organizing November into 3 separate mini-units - the Wampanoag Native Americans, the Pilgrims, and then Gratitude, obviously each theme helping us understand the first Thanksgiving, etc.

But none of my Native American ideas I used were actually from the Wampanoag tribe.

From the books we did talk about Somosat and Squanto and Massosoit. And so the kids knew who those Native Americans were and what they did. And Joshua and I talked about some interesting facts about the Wampanoag - things that Joshua wouldn't know about.  But all of the following activities (with exception of the paper dolls which I think are authentically dressed) really aren't culturally accurate to the Wampanoag.

This game is called Hubbub. It has nothing to do with the Wampanoag, but it is a Native American game.

 You can probably figure out how to play the game by this photo. You toss the plum pits (or cardboard circles) into your homemade pottery bowl (or onto a piece of colored paper) and count up your points, then you keep track of your points with your sticks (or toothpicks). We won 0 authenticity points here, but it was a lot of fun to play. Especially with a four year old.

We made some Native American Feather Headbands. The Wampanoag men actually did wear a feather in their hair (they also had mohawks) but I kind of doubt the women did. Abigail didn't wear hers for long anyway. I know there is a chance that I am offending a Wampanoag out there. Sorry about that.

 

 Joshua took a really long time making his look good. I think it does. I think everything they do looks good when they put effort into it. But, you know, I'm their mom. That's in my job description.

 I promise he really liked wearing it.

Here are the paper dolls. Abigail colored the girls and Joshua colored the boys. Joshua has a really hard time with the fact that these Native American's didn't wear enough clothing to be modest. That opened up an entirely different discussion, but that's ok. 

 The man in the red coat has yellow arms and orange shoulders. Joshua kept asking me, "Mom, did the Native American's really have orange shoulders back then?" Uh, no. Just because you colored it that way doesn't mean that was really how it was.

 I chose the paper doll activity because when I was a little girl my mother loved paper dolls and she was always trying to get us to play with them. I thought maybe as an adult my tastes would have changed, you know, like asparagus and broccoli. You know, I didn't like them then, and I still don't like them now. The clothes never stay on - even when I cut out about 5 extra tabs and strategically place them on the paper clothing. But we're going to do Pilgrim paper dolls next week to compliment these - and so we can play with them all together so I will bear them in silence for one more week.

 And finally (I know, we could have done so much more and so many BETTER things) we found a Native American. I'm pretty sure he's a Ute (not Ute like OO-teh my Ungeheuer - see next post - but like YUE-t as in Utah without the ah) close enough, I suppose.

The Letter U

Ute, Ursula, und Ullrich, die Ungeheuer
(Ute, Ursula, and Ullrich, the Monsters)

They worked on their Ungeheuer for AN HOUR!!!

 Joshua was a big help to Abigail

 This is Ute. She is a superhero monster as seen by her cape

Abigail's (Ursula) is not quite finished. Ursula has a beak.

And then they played and played and played with them

This is Ullrich (At first he was named Udo).  Ullrich is very complex.  He has eyes on his wings, a light purple hat, a really really long arm (the purple and pink thing tied together), a drink with a straw (that's the orange thing) and a handle (that's the light green thing under the orange thing).  Ullrich's father is a glow stick, but since the glow stick can't walk, Ullrich has to hold him with his long arm.

Family Photo before bed

Our monsters are scary...

 ...really scary!!

(So far this has been one of my favorite craft activities with the kids. I put out a bunch of stuff, gave them a few ideas, handed them the glue and let them go. I know we did Monsters for M with our mini monsters, but that craft was so mother-driven that it doesn't really even compare to this one. Plus, I couldn't think of another U word that I really wanted to do.)

The Letter T

It is nice sometimes to just take advantage of the season. T was a piece of cake.

Trick-or-Treating starts with T

Truthahn (Turkey) starts with T

Instead of tracing their hands, we painted their hands. It was so fun, they both wanted to do it twice.

And I saw this idea in a Thanksgiving idea book. I traced the shape of a turkey and then we went out and collected fall leaves to make the turkey's colorful tail. I liked this craft - mostly, I just liked being outside even if it was a little dreary. It reminded me of being a kid back in Washington (except most of our trees were evergreen and all the deciduous leaves were always wet and a little more decayed than beautiful.)

I meant pick out leave that had already fallen, but Joshua couldn't resist these, I guess.

see, kind of dreary (there is my dead garden)

I'm not sure why he is making this face. Although he has mentioned multiple times in the last few days that he was so angry, "du kannst es nicht glauben!" (you can't even believe it!)

I took this photo before Joshua colored it in. One of those red leaves is actually a "scout patch" that this turkey earned. Way to go turkey, let's all give it a cheer...

I "helped" Abigail with her turkey. :)

It's STILL Fall

Whenever I look outside and see the snow I get a little depressed. So my anti-depressant will be to look at these photos. They make me happy. I'm starting to feel like a photographer... kind of.

 

Halloween

Here are our photos. Halloween was a lot of fun.

  This wasn't on Halloween, but the grand opening day at the library where the kids got to wear their costumes and this was a cute photo.

Abigail, Joshua, Nathan, and Sarah at the library grand opening.

 This was Joshua's requested Halloween coloring page. He specifically wanted the skeleton wearing the cape blowing in the wind. (His is the one on the left with the "lightning", not the one on the right that actually looks like it has lightning on it.)

 Ghosts. (Joshua's is named Spensti)

  I wanted to put glow in the dark paint on them but never got around to it.

Right before heading out - the obligatory photos in the costumes

  Our litty piggy - carrying her own little piggy

The utahraptor - I added the letters on his shirt earlier that day because Joshua was concerned that nobody knew what he was. I love his costume. It turned out so well, I think.

  Knocking at our first house - our landlady upstairs

We got about 45 minutes out and Abigail was done. She refused to get out of the stroller until she missed out on candy at one house because she wouldn't go to the door. After that she was sure to get out of the stroller at each house, and promptly get right back in.  Near the end Abby's candy bag was so heavy she was pushing her candy bag around in the stroller. Joshua's candy bucket was full to the top so he left his bag in the stroller and just went to the door without and, collected his candy, and returned to put his new candy in the stroller next to his candy bucket. We were out for 2 1/2 hours!! Here are some photos of their "earnings."

 Abigail's bag - it was really really heavy, as you can see.

 Here they are eating one piece and then we hurried them off to bed. (Please ignore the lady -me- in the orange shirt. I didn't know this photos was being taken, otherwise I would have quickly scooted out of the way)

The Letter S

Samen (seeds) starts with S.

We took all the various seeds I could find in my kitchen and made a big S out of them. Pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds (another S), and black and white Sesame seeds (another S, extra points again).

Suppe (Soup) starts with S

Slaw (as in Cole Slaw and not a German word) starts with S too, which is why it is our side salad (which also starts with S)

I know, these are kind of repeat photos from the previous post, but it was just easier to combine the letter S with things we were already doing.

Pumpkins: Patch 2.1, Patch 2.2 and things to eat

I feel like in the last week or so we have done a lot of pumpkin things. Mostly I just wanted to get everything done by Halloween. Thankfully, we have. Here it is.

The kids and I painted our 5 pumpkins (2 from the Patch in Santaquin and 3 from my friend in Spanish Fork who grew her own this year.

I was going for "scary." oh well. At least it glows in the dark. That's pretty cool.

 "Autumn" this is my artsy pumpkin

We made chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, which we do every year because they are fabulous.

But I didn't take a photo of the beautiful muffins, just of the ugly looking batter. Oh well. You can always look up last year's post if you really want to see these muffins in all their pumpkin glory.

 Ok. Pumpkin Patch 2.1

We went to Jaker's which is near Walmart. What I love about this place is that everything is free except the pumpkins. They had farm animals... this is Abigail in front of the really big pig (did I mention she is in love with pigs?) My friend jokingly asked Abigail if she wanted to ride it and Abigail was disappointed when I told her she couldn't.

 They also have a big corn kernel pit, which was a blast with the kiddos and adults.

 except maybe not so much this kiddo. Sorry Lukas.

 They had a maze just for little kids, which I think is a fabulous idea. Joshua figured out quickly had to take control of the situation.

 At home we worked on some Halloween pumpkin art.

And I got suckered - by my own kids - into buying more pumpkins. We got a really really little one for Abigail, a medium one for Joshua, and this monster, so we could carve him. So we carved him.

 This was our inspiration.

 This was our reality.

 And this is what he looks like at night. His name, by the way, is Janckie - not rhyming with Hanky, but like Jacky with an n.

 We roasted his seeds. This year I was successful. These were so delicious. I read some online recipes and decided to add cinnamon and sugar to the seeds after they had been roasted in butter and salt. Yum.

 I couldn't decide which photo I liked (because my new camera is so awesome, you can actually see the granules of sugar!!!) so I put in both.

 Pumpkin Patch 2.2  

We went to the pumpkin patch again!  Yeah! We really like this place. When I told Abigail we were going the first thing she said was, "Darf ich das Schwein reiten?" (may I ride the pig?) And this time I was using the new camera so I tried to take some better photos. These are kind of dark. I think I just need to figure out my settings a little better.

 A note on Abigail's necklaces: She designed her necklace(s) herself, consisting of two headbands, one attached to a ballerina doll that Lukas swiped from Grammy's house, the other with a "butterfly" or "flower" depending on what she's feeling like at the moment, and a silver beaded necklace because it's just like my pearl necklace that I wore on Sunday. She asked if she could wear them to the pumpkin patch I said, hey, why not.

 Abigail jumping from a bale of hay.

 Joshua enjoying the corn.

 I really should have more than one photo of our grand finale, but it just seemed like too much work. (I used the "gourmet" setting on my camera which is specifically for taking photographs of food.) Anyway, this is pumpkin soup and pumpkin corn bread. The corn bread didn't taste like pumpkin, really, but that may be because my cornmeal was kind of old - so the bread mostly just tasted like old corn meal. That didn't stop Joshua from eating 4 pieces. And the pumpkin soup, I would say, gets a 7.5 out of 10. It was very good. I did have two bowls. But I wouldn't eat it every day and I might not make it again for a couple of months.

 Lukas had pumpkin for dinner too. I made that and I am proud of myself.

 He thought it was pretty tasty.

 These are the books from which I got the recipes. The kids and I made the soup together; Joshua was the squirrel, I was the cat, and Abigail was the duck who makes all the trouble. It's kind of a cute book, but the illustrations were, I think, better than the actual text, or even story.

Anyway. That's all. Next week, after Halloween, we'll have to start on something new. I better go look up what it will be.