I is for Native American?

This week I taught preschool at my house, and we learned about the letter "I". I got the ideas for Thursdays lessons, from Jessi, who had "I" last year, and would have had it this year if she hadn't just had her newest bundle of joy. I was grateful to steal her theme for such a fun day at preschool. I would never have thought of "I is for Indians" on my own, but it turned out great, and I was even able to restrain myself from saying anything about white men killing them and stealing their land.

We started out our lesson with a very non-PC clip from the movie Peter Pan, that of course, the kids loved. Then we each chose Indian names and learned about petroglyphs. The kids each made a vest and attempted to draw a petroglyph of their new Indian name. Then they made a headdress and a paper plate music shaker. We ended our class with an Indian feast or dried meat (beef jerky), dried berries (raisins), and some mixed nuts. It was super fun.

Here's the class all dressed up.

They had to show off the drawings on the back

(click on the picture and it will enlarge so you can actually see the drawings).

Dancing Sheep (Lexi)Running Horse (Gavin)

Princess Piglet (Aiko)Juggling Clown (Parker)

Princess Pink Pig (Paili)

I loved having them each pick out their own name. Parker was really focused on being something related to Halloween coming up and Aiko and Paili are best friends so they really wanted to pick the same animal for their names. The following morning Caleb changed Gavin's name to Chief Whining Horse, which actually got him laughing instead of complaining.