Thursday, March 10, 2016

Time Travel


On Wednesday, the Grade 6s headed to Ska-Nah-Doht in Mount Brydges, ON, a 2 hour drive east.  The real plan was for us to make this trip two weeks ago when there was snow so that we would be able to experience snowshoeing.  Alas, there was TOO MUCH SNOW!  So much that the leaders couldn't get into the conservation park!  This week, the snow melted with the 18C temps so we ended up foregoing snowshoeing but still enjoyed stepping back to 1016 to experience life in this Iroquoian village.
The palisade greets visitors and challenges them to find entrance to the village
Rose, our guide for the day, made us use our math brains as she threw numbers at us and had us calculating time, distance and number of trees.  Field trip doesn't mean your brain is on vacation!
Having granite, bones and pelts guaranteed survival
At the age of 4, boys were expected to be the "muscle of the village" and would carry what the women gathered, learn to hunt rabbit, muskrat and eventually, deer, moose and bear.  Girls became gathers, searching for berries, planting the "3 Sisters" (corn, squash and beans), learning to sew with bone needles, and cooking over open fire.
Rose teaches us that it takes 10 deer to outfit an 11 year old and that our "village" had 22 children.  How many deer would we need to hunt?  Notice the moose hide behind her.  MUCH bigger!
Can you imagine needing to rebuild your house every 2o years?  Ska-Nah-Doht (the village that stands), is presently 43 years old and on its third rebuild.  Cedar trunks needed to be about 2m around and at least 6m tall.  Oh, and you only needed about 10,000 trees to make a village!  In the present, Rose says the trunks she gets look like "toothpicks" because they are too young and skinny.  Whatever the Iroquois took from the land, they replenished for the 7th generation.  This meant that a tree would be about 80 years old when it was ready to be used for the longhouses and palisade.

The frame of the third longhouse is getting ready to be replaced
These longhouses are not the usual 75 feet (they're about 30) and would only hold about 6 families (30 people)
The students also learned the importance of tools.  They were divided into "tribes" and had to elect a leader.  This was their first "test" to see if they had been listening to Rose mentioning that the females were in charge.
Then, the tribes were challenged to make tools using the materials found in a bin.  These materials were sticks, stones, bones and string.  Which tribe would be able to survive?

The available materials
Tealie was elected "elder" of her tribe because she was the oldest in her group.  Good thing she's female! 
Tools needed for these seven areas of life in the village...in order of importance!
The students had some innovative ideas but given the short window of time (10 minutes), they felt discouraged when their ideas didn't measure up to what they had imagined.  Still, we got to see some multi-purpose tools and tools from many of the areas.  We might have to try this challenge again at school!

We're grateful for this opportunity which was completely funded by an outdoor education grant from the Ministry of Education.  

~MissBrooks






Friday, March 4, 2016

Are You Ready for All This?

One of the many afternoon practices for Stations of the Cross held at the church
Our schedule is full of preparing for one thing or another these days!   We are in the midst of getting ready for Carnaval, Stations of the Cross and our Lenten Food Drive.  Somewhere in this tight schedule, we are still making every attempt to squeeze in curriculum.

Stations of the Cross:  
The class just finished their first performance of the Stations of the Cross this evening.  Everyone met at the church, had a slice of cheese pizza, got into costume and frolicked around until show time at 6:30.  About one hundred people filled the church to pray the stations as they were presented by the students.

Simon (Aidan) helps Jesus (Jackson) carry His cross as the crowd and soldiers look on
Jesus is about to be crucified 
Looking from the altar into the "crowd".
Group shot in their costumes before the presentation
Thank you to these young people for answering "Yes" when asked to participate in the Stations and share this most important part of our Catholic faith with others through their performance.  You are a blessing in this proud teacher's life!

Physical Literacy:
This week, many of the students donned a pedometer during their waking hours as they had agreed to be subjects in a research study on children's activity.  I'm curious to see the results as this week was a busy one what with our walking to and from the church for practice every day, having our regularly scheduled gym classes and a Jr basketball tournament on Thursday.  The week ended with a bonus gym period that lasted one hour (NO COMPLAINTS!) where researchers put the kids through some paces and recorded observations.

Jr Basketball team representing St Bernard at the Corpus Christi tournament
Obstacle portion of the extra gym period 
The first group prepares for the beep test.  Aidan made it to 53!

Lenten Food Drive:
Each morning, the kids partner up and head to one of the other 12 classrooms to collect any goods that have been brought in for the food drive.  To date, we have 35% of the school participating and about 40% of our class.
As leaders, the Gr 6s have been responsible for making announcements, sorting the food and checking for expiry dates.  To create some fun and excitement about the food drive, we held a draw for Spitfire tickets to this coming Sunday's game.  The panthers who had already brought in a bag of food had their name entered into the draw.
Jackson won tickets to the Spits Game 

Carnaval:
Next week, we kick off Carnaval.  Madame and her Knucks (the Gr 6s) have been busy planning and preparing activities that are sure to delight one and all!


Finishing up posters and preparations for the Carnaval

Is this busy start to March comparable to the month starting like a lion?
~MissBrooks

Follow us on TWITTER!