just finishing up Christopher Columbus.
didn't realize how hard it would be to teach/relive...so glad he found his Indies-Japan/our Americas but so sad how he did it and what he immediately started doing.
I've repeated to the girls 1,000 times these past few weeks, we are thankful for Christopher Columbus and his dream but not proud of his sin.
hard to teach the balance of loving a sinner, hating the sin.
and it goes for both sides...some of the natives Christopher Columbus ran into on these first set of islands were cannibals....try explaining THAT to a four year old!
we focused on stuff 7, 6 and 4 year olds could wrap their mind around instead.
like:
The Taino Native Americans (the first Native Americans Columbus encountered/enslaved) cultivated yuca and painted themselves red with the juice of berries to ward off mosquitos.
(our version: potato stamps dipped in a red ink pad and applied whereva'!)
it was fun.
THAT they got.
they immediately wanted to go outside and see if it would work on our mosquitos and I have to admit I was wanting to do some research on what berries exactly they used because we've tried everything else and it's not a bad idea!
we are almost done with Pedro's Journal.
very good.
very accurate and cute and at their level without dumbing it down or making it seem nicer than it was.
on to Pocahontas next...that ought to be just as easy ;-).
2 comments:
You've probably moved on already but if it wasn't covered in your lesson, you should tell your girls about Antonio de Montesinos. Though it wasn't until 1511, he delivered a famous sermon to the Spanish colonists where he denounced their treatment of the Taino people. Good stuff.
Of course, that might just be interesting to history major nerds like me :)
Love the potato stamps.
And you could always stick to Disney's version of Pocahontas. I like that one the best. :~)
Post a Comment