This week we told a beautiful Native American legend called "How Corn Came into the World" from Suzanne Downs' Autumn Tales book. I thought it was a very poignant story about a young man meeting his lovely Corn Maiden. All of our corn-related activities this week came from the FABULOUS book Earthways, by Carol Petrash. I love it because it is full of nature-oriented crafts and activities that are easy for very young children to do.
Sariah grinding corn for cornbread. Just so you know, Indian corn doesn't make very sweet-tasting bread! The kids didn't much like it. And I have to laugh at this picture. I really have been trying hard to make sure everyone is dressed and has their hair combed before we start school each day. But I did fall off the wagon quite a bit this week. I read a post on the LDS Homeschooling blog recently where they were asking if people had a "dress code" of sorts for their homeschooled kids when they were out in public. Someone used the term "homely-schooled" to describe how lax we can sometimes get about our kids' appearance when they are not going to a formal school every day. I have to wonder if the above picture fits that bill! At least her clothes match, right?
We made cornhusk dolls. They are so easy! These were done with the husks for tamales that you can buy in the Mexican foods' section of the grocery store. Sariah promptly destroyed this doll by writing all over it with green permanent marker (which she had to climb to get, of course). I got more husks out of my garden, but we haven't used them yet. Dallin gets into the kindergarten activities as much as he does his own school. He insisted on making a corn husk doll too.
The Corn Maiden's "hair the color of daylight", as the story phrases it.
I also taught the kids how to rub the kernals off the corn cobs. Dallin especially enjoyed this activity and thought that the kernal-less cobs were way cool. We are/were supposed to make necklaces out of the kernals, but that's another one of those projects that may or may not get done. There's always next year, I suppose!
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