Kindergarten is not visiting this week as all three kinder classes come on Wednesday, which this week is Veterans Day.
The younger grades are hearing traditional Native American tales. All readalouds can be found on the Weekly Readalouds page of this site. I'm particularly looking forward to Turkey's Gift to the People, as told by Ani Rucki. Being a vegetarian, I like to give turkeys good press around Thanksgiving. TK will be hearing Jingle Dancer, by Cynthia Leitich Smith, a new book in our collection. There's a YouTube video embedded below of jingle dancers performing at a competition--I hope to show this to the TK students. (As always, beware of comments, advertisements, and sidebars that may accompany YouTube content and that may not be appropriate for children.)
Grade 3 will hear Her Seven Brothers, told by Paul Goble. It is a Cheyenne tale about the origin of the Big Dipper. What a great book this is. We will talk a bit about the types of folklore and in particular focus on what a legend is.
Grade 4 will hear a Karuk tale, Fire Race, as retold by Jonathan London. This one is on loan to me from our local public library. To give the students a bit more context, I'm also planning to show a short National Geographic video. We will take a quick look at the website of the Karuk tribe.
To grade 5 I'm planning to read a book I have never read aloud: Bright Path: Young Jim Thorpe, by Don Brown. Jim Thorpe was a Sac and Fox Indian who medaled in the pentathlon and the decathlon at the 1912 Olympic games. Many have referred to him as the greatest athlete of the twentieth century. In preparing to share this book, I came upon an interesting article in Smithsonian about Jim Thorpe and the IOC. The article (which is written at a grownup level) provides a good discussion of Thorpe's athletic feats as well as thoughts on the IOC's decision to strip from Thorpe his 1912 Olympic medals. Just so the students can see film of Thorpe I will show a 1-minute video promoting PBS's "Jim Thorpe: The World's Greatest Athlete."
Books about American Indians and about Veterans Day are on display. Please check some out to read and think about at home.