With this in mind, my first graders and I celebrate the first Americans through the Sioux, the Iroquois, the Hopi and the Cherokee of long ago.  Our adventure begins with building four large teepees and a sacred fire created out of logs and red and orange tissue paper, around which we will be doing all of our work

As ‘Wise Woman’ and ‘She Who Knows,’ I divide the children into the four communities and we spend our morning circles learning about each other.  From the Sioux we learn to build teepees and hunt for buffalo.  We also learn about the importance of kindness and the beauty of silence.   The Hopi greet us with baskets of corn and special fruit that grows on cactus.  We make Kochina figures and paint the colors of the desert’s sunsets.

The Cherokee help us to understand the importance of sharing what we have.  We make beautiful beaded jewelry and dolls from cornhusks.  The Iroquois welcome us into their many clans.  We build miniature longhouses with popsicle sticks and make maple sugar candy.  We also string wampum (shell) beads to remember the important events in our lives.  It is precious to hear what qualifies as special moments to string up in the mind of a six and seven year old.  For example: when my daddy raked up all the leaves, I got to jump in them!  Or, when I rode my bicycle without training wheels for the first time.

After a weeklong visit with our Native American friends, we hold a Green Corn Dance celebration where we dance in a circle, plant corn and then gather it.  And we invite the parents to join us in dancing and dining!

We begin our study of the Ancients with cave paintings, creating our own with paint, sand and oil pastels.  We draw our favorite animals and wonder why these first artists painted theirs.  Morning Meeting is held around a make believe campfire and we discuss and debate which continent we would walk to if land bridges were still available!

Eventually we come to understand that there were Hunters and Gatherers who liked settling down and when they did, they invented a way to keep track of their goods.  Can you imagine the excitement onday?  We pound and mold our clumps of clay into squares and with little pointed sticks, carve the oldest form of writing into them. The excitement continues as we visit ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs, ancient Chinese characters and finally, the Phoenicians, who invented our original alphabet.  As the last Phoenician ship sails into history, we are ready for our ultimate A-Z adventure: learning to read and write!