Back in the saddle

It's been awhile since I blogged.  Chalk that up to the school year starting, and the free time gone.   We finished our first lesson block on Local Geography.   Here is some of the main lesson work Dallin did, along with a few paintings I did:

 My paintings of the Great Salt Lake.



Dallin's Great Salt Lake painting.  He proclaimed it one of his best ever, and I agree.  Keep in mind that he is using only the colors red, yellow, and blue (though we do have a cool and a warm version of each of those colors).



Dallin's map of the three physiogeographic regions of Utah.  The color looks faded, but suffice it to say, he did an impressive job, getting in the major water ways and mountain ranges.   Next to is it his write-up of how the four ancient elements of water, fire, earth and air helped to form the features of our state.  This was a pictorial way in which we brought some very, very basic geology to our studies.  (Waldorf students typically do not study formal geology until age 11.)



I am proud of these paintings of mountains that I did!

Next we talked about the Fremont Indians (since we covered the more recent Goshutes extensively last year).  I drew these examples of Fremont petroglyphs.

Dallin chose some petroglyphs to do himself using crayon resist with watercolor to look like canyon walls.  When we went to Capitol Reef (coming up in a later post), he was thrilled to find petroglyphs just like some of the ones he had drawn.  Of course, Mom planned that that way on purpose.

 

We talked about the symbolism of the different characters, and then for his writing assignment, I had him create his own myth based on the symbols he had drawn/painted.  He called his story "Sherbet the God of Hunting", and I'm sure the real Fremont Indians would have gotten a good guffaw out of reading it.

Next we talked about explorers and mountain men.  On the left is his illustration of one of the Spanish fathers of the Dominquez-Escalante expedition with Joaquin the Timponogot Ute guide, and on the right is Jim Bridger finding the Great Salt Lake.  I think these are some of his best drawings too.   We have moved up in the world to drawing with colored pencil instead of crayon.

We probably discussed a bit more history than would be typical for this block.  The emphasis is really on the geography and how people use the land.  I did bring in quite a bit of history, but tried to keep it very much in the story realm rather than dry facts.  With each group of people we studied, we spent a great deal of time focusing on how they used the land.   We talked about the availability of water, timber, and things like that.  We talked about irrigation, how houses were built, how the tall grass of the Salt Lake Valley could feed livestock so well.  Of course we spent quite a bit of time on the Mormon pioneers, and their growth here was unique because it was a systematic and organized colonization.  People didn't generally move from place to place randomly.  Exploring parties were sent out shortly after the pioneers arrived in Utah, looking for very specific resources, and then people were literally assigned by Brigham Young to move to specific locations for specific reasons.   I'm not sure there was anything like it anywhere else in the world before or since.

We had fun singing Mormon pioneer songs like The Handcart Song and Whoa Haw Buck and Jerry Boy.  Dallin really loved that last one.

We took a field trip to downtown Salt Lake, an idea which I unabashedly borrowed from my friend Rachel.  We had a really amazing experience at the LDS Church Museum of History and Art. 

 Here Dallin and Sariah are laying in replica berths from a clipper ship that brought Mormon pioneers from England to the U.S. in the 1850's.  They also had a scale model replica of a ship called the Enoch Train, where you could see the inside of the ship and what it would have looked like.   There were even little tiny human figures representing the passengers.  Dallin was impressed by the doll that was leaning over the side of the ship barfing.  A few days later I was looking through some family history things his birthmother had sent last year trying to find information on his ancestors who settled in Utah.  Much to my surprise, I found that one of his great-greats was actually a passenger on the Enoch Train, the very ship we had seen the model of in the museum!  To me that was a small tender mercy, and not one bit a coincidence!

  Sariah tries to pull a handcart.

 The location for the temple was marked out within the first day or two after the Mormons arrived in Utah.  It took over 40 years to build, and this is how it looks today.

 We visited the Beehive House, Brigham Young's home.  As a child I visited this house a couple of times, and it is a favorite memory.  I had not been there since my childhood.  I was interested in architecture, pioneers, and all things Victorian, so this was like my dream house.  I remember getting postcards of the house and perusing them all the time.  Dallin was not even remotely as interested as I would have been at his age.

We then walked through the brand new City Creek Center, a symbol of just how much progress has happened in the last 165 years.  This shopping center is right across the street from Temple Square:

The culmination of our Utah Geography block was a three-day field trip to Capitol Reef National Park and southern Utah, which will need a blog post all it's own.