Native American Totem Spoons and Geese

The potions, lava lamp and plasma ball have all been take away from my classroom and been replaced by a brand new, exciting topic: ROAD TRIP USA. This is set to be a fascinating look into modern day USA with some focus on the Native Americans, also.

We mark the start of each new topic with a memorable experience. In the morning, we watched the amazing film Pocahontas and the afternoon involved a Native American rotation where children spent time in each of the 3 classrooms with a different activity. In one, they were learning about the states and tribes that originated there. In another, they were learning about the Mikmaq tribe's legend of the Wild Goose and they were creating their own totem spoons out of clay in the third.

I came across a picture on Pinterest with a totem spoon and thought it'd be a lovely art lesson to attempt. They learnt that a totem tells a story and the spoon is symbolic of sharing. Due to being pushed for time, children only had about 40 minutes to construct their totem spoon that had to convey something about them. They were painted in another 40 minute session and will be glazed next week.

In another room, the focus was on Mikmaq Geese Migration using this website which is where the great idea came from. We read the legend of the Mikmaq geese and talked about migration and how the geese were in charge of looking after the other bird. Next, we went through a few slides on the board showing how they would construct their piece of art.

To save time, I had pre-cut a rough bird outline onto black card. Children could then choose 2 colours and decorate the goose with cut up pieces of paper to act as feathers. I modelled how to fold paper and then cut to produce more feathers which would save them valuable time! Most of the students followed the guide well but a few went off-tangent but still ended up with a good outcome. Here's how they turned out:

The next post will be to share our work on totem poles. We just finished constructing them yesterday and I am INCREDIBLY proud of how they turned out. The children listened so carefully and put a lot of effort in. I look forward to showing you. Well done 4B!

DB.