Beth's Adventures in Mbarara Uganda

Way back in November and December, we did a big unit on some Laura Ingalls Wilder books and Native Americans. We ended our Laura Ingalls Wilder unit by having a big "Pioneer Day," where we made several different treats to eat and played some Pioneer and Native American games. It was quite funny to see the faces of the students as they tasted some of the foods, like vinegar pie, cornmeal mush, fried cornmeal mush, etc. They DID enjoy making the ginger molasses cookies (because they got to roll them out and carve out shapes with knives), but they didn't really like eating them so much. As we made our own butter, the kids commented how thankful they are for "Blue Band" (the Ugandan margarine gook that doesn't need to be refridgerated or anything!) because their arms were tired of shaking the cream. Plus it just didn't taste that great!

Also, as we studied Native Americans, the students created Alphabet books and we did many other different activities. We made a class totem pole, created clay coil pots, tried to do some rain chants/dances, "weaved" paper mats, and even made Navajo fry bread (which was a HIT!). There are some pictures of my P4 students reading their Native American Alphabet books with the P2 students.

Please make sure to check out my picture website (http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/bethellent/my_photos) to see some of the pictures!

p.s. Pioneer Day never could've happened without my sister, Debbie's, help! THANKS DEB!