We read a story from the Pacific Northwest called Raven by Gerald McDermott. I told the students there were several different Raven stories from the Pacific Coast and this was a combination of many of them.
We talked about the terms Aboriginal and First Nations and I shared a little bit about my visits to Haida Gwaii and the stories from there.
I explained that we would be reading other Aboriginal stories to look at the ways celestial objects such as the sun and the moon are portrayed and are important to Aboriginal peoples.
The students were quite enthralled by the story and were particularly interested how Raven turned himself into a pineneedle and in the nesting bentwood box the sun was hidden in.
After discussing the story, the students used the Doodle Buddy or Writer's Studio apps on the iPads to draw a picture from the story.
I'm looking forward to reading a few more of these stories to them and seeing what kinds of text-to-text connections and connections to our study of astronomy that the students make.
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