We started out our discussion today by getting familiar with Miyax and her world. We were able to find Barrow, Alaska on a map and visually tracked her long journey to San Francisco. Seeing how close Alaska is to the North Pole helped us to understand her dilemma of "midnight sun" and lack of navigational stars in the summertime.
Jonny helped us to better understand the science behind a frost heave, and Corban and Benjamin offered some great ideas on ways we could build a sod house.
We learned more about the author, Jean Craighead George, and watched a video clip of her communicating with her dog, the same way Miyax learned to talk with the wolves. We all agreed that Ms George's knowledge of nature helps us to believe the events in this story are realistic and true.
After practicing our own wolf howls, we finished our immersion by playing a game that Eskimo children play. It is called Tingmiulang, and it uses tiny clay ducks that point their beaks at the winner. I challenged the students to make their own set of tingmiulang ducks the next time they find riverside clay.
Next week, come prepared to continue our survival discussion having read up to Part 2 in the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment