Adventures in History

   

I've probably mentioned before, but we combine all the students, 1st through 5th grade, for history class. We read through a book called Story of the World that gives a basic chronological overview of the history of the whole world. This year's book covers the fall of Rome through the renaissance. Which means we move fairly quickly through the material. A week on early Britain, a week on the rise of Islam, a week on the Byzantine empire, etc. During the last couple weeks it worked out that we had time on Friday to do some fun extra stuff to supplement what we were learning. If the kids are learning even just half of what I am (and having half as much fun) then I would be confident in saying we have a pretty awesome history class.

The first project we did with them was a cooking adventure. We had just read about the Golden Age of China and how nobles ate 24 different types of dumplings. So of course we had to try some for ourselves, right? After a bit of research and a tolerably successful test run, the other two head teachers and I spent a good chunk of the morning teaching cooking class. The first through fourth grade mixed and rolled out the dough for the outside, while my little chefs of the fifth grade cooked up the filling. I've never seen grating and chopping and stirring done with more gusto. And they created an excellent filling. All the kids stuffed their little pot stickers and during the wait time listened quite contentedly to a Japanese legend about an eight headed snake and a maiden turned into a hair comb. Of course, we finished by enjoying the (delicious) fruits of our labor. Pretty cool history class, right?

A few of the students from yearbook (Sarang and Laelle) club took these photos of the cooking in progress.

This last week, although not as edible, was just as entertaining. We spend the week reading about Australia and New Zealand, and I thought teaching the students more about the Maori culture would be rather memorable. So we learned a Haka.

If you've never seen a Haka, you really should look it up. It's a battle cry chant/dance that may seem strange in theory (sticking your tongue out and slapping your thighs? Really?) but is actually quite effective. Even downright scary. The All Blacks rugby team does them before their matches, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that contributed to their success.

Drawing slightly on what I remembered from my first year of university, and largely from the internet, I came up with a Haka to teach my class. They learned the actual words and got really into the whole thing. And I can tell you from firsthand experience that the Haka is very effective at getting the participants riled up. The next day while I taught the rest of the students about the Haka, my students got their faces painted up like Maori warriors and then ran in to demonstrate their own Haka. The others were pretty impressed. Then my students taught the first through fourth graders while the teachers gave everyone war paint. They made very good leaders/teachers and I was more than a little proud of them. As a culmination of our lesson we all went out to the soccer field and the two groups faced off with each other, and then came together to do a unified Acacia haka. 

Hopefully educational. Definitely memorable.

Thanks Acacia and Lee Erin for the photos!