Yesterday and today, Neil was a guest speaker in Sophia's classroom (grades 2/3) for about 30 minutes each day. (Georgia was there with him both times and Madeline once.) He showed the students a bison skull*, bison horn caps and hair**, bison photos, an elk antler, arrowheads and other stone tools; demonstrated how to flake obsidian to make arrowheads; and provided some information about various weapons of aboriginal people (drawing on his anthropology studies and other sources), methods of hunting bison such as jumps and pounds, and other bison history and facts (drawing on information gleaned from the 2007 International Bison Conference we attended, our visit to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, personal experience, and other sources).
It sounds like Sophia and her classmates really enjoyed seeing and touching the various artifacts and learning about these things! This was Neil's fifth time being a guest speaker in our girls' classrooms (previously, three times for preschool classes and once for grade one) and he will be going to Madeline's kindergarten class later this year.
*Unfortunately our specimen looks a little worse for wear since Sherlock chewed on the horns when the skull was weathering in our backyard a few years ago. Oh well.
**Thanks again to Mom and Dad for providing the bison horn caps and hair! The children enjoy being able to touch them.
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Today I'm thankful for:
- my bed
- online education
