"Far to the north, people called Eskimos live in
houses called Igloos. Igloos are made of ice and snow. Eskimos hunt seal, caribou, polar bear, and fish. In the winter, hard
winds can make the temperature drop as much as one hundred below zero. That's why an igloo is shaped like half a ball. The
round shapes makes the wind blow over it instead of striking against a flat wall."
This page is from a main lesson block on Shelters that was completed
at around age 9. The focus of this block is on geography as it relates to culture, and how different people live. These drawings
are artistic expressions of igloo homes.
The essence of this block is to help a child of this age ground themselves
as they work through a period in their lives often referred to as the "nine-year change". This period marks a huge shift in
consciousness as the child straddles the world of early childhood and the world of adolescence. During this time, the
child is really asking: Where is my true home? How am I to find my own way and live in this world?
Interested in knowing more about the nine-year change? Here's an article written by Rahima Baldwin Dancy that you may find interesting: Parenting the Nine Year Old
Here is another example of a shelter, a Pueblo Indian village. Note the use of different types of borders
that reflect the theme of the artistic expression.
Here is the text that accompanies the drawing above. Each time a child writes words to go with a picture,
it's an opportunity to practice grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
This is an example of a Bushment hut. There is also text that accompanies this drawing, opposite the picture.
In addition to the artistic expressions above, other examples of shelters were studied and drawn, including
a stone house, and a desert tent.
Finally, the question is posed: If you could live in any kind of a shelter, what kind of a shelter would
you live in? In this case, it was a tree house!
During this block, we also:
- built a shelter out of ice and snow
- visited an authentic Iroquois "long house"
- read about different kinds of shelters and how people live in different cultures
- visited examples of different period housing (16th-20th century)
- constructed an authentic model of a brick and mortar house
- visited real-life construction sites
- viewed real-life blueprints
- created plans for a real shelter (tree house) at home
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