This November I will be diving into the event most synonymous with the month, Thanksgiving. As a historian specializing in American history, there are few topics in elementary education that are taught incorrectly more often than Thanksgiving.
Factual education about this event is something that is needed, and it is my hope to set the record straight, for children and adults alike! I will provide some key facts and fictions of Thanksgiving, though to understand the real history I will attach some key resources for parents or caregivers to check out! With this brief background it is my hope that readers will receive a foundational education in the real history of Thanksgiving.
Facts:
•Thanksgiving was a 3-day feast, between English colonists and the Wampanoag people, who were native to Eastern Massachusetts. •The colonists were seeking money and wealth, while some were religious outcasts looking to practice their faith. •Wampanoag people already had many interactions with Europeans, at least two Wampanoag’s spoke English prior to the arrival of the Mayflower. •The Wampanoag were devastated by diseases before the Mayflower anchored. •The Wampanoag were enemies with the Narragansett peoples and fought for control of Eastern Massachusetts. •Wampanoag partnered with the colonists because of necessity, for they wanted to help secure their territorial claims as disease (from Europeans) decimated their communities. •The Wampanoag taught the English settlers how to farm and cultivate local crops and wildlife.
Fictions: •The Wampanoag gave up their land to the colonists, on the contrary, they assisted the colonists in their survival, and allied with them out of necessity. Eventually losing their land during King Philips War years later. •Indigenous Peoples didn’t understand land as property. That statement is false. •Turkey was the main item for the feast, False, although turkey and duck were present, deer was the most prevalent food item at the feast.
There’s a chill in the air, October is here! At Explore and More we are celebrating October with so many fun classes. Our Pre-K class Explore Even More and our Toddler Time class will be on the 21st with fun Halloween activities and trick-or-treating! Wizards from Wonderland Character Entertainment are visiting the museum on the 22nd for a magical themed STEAM class. The whole museum will be celebrating Spooktacular with crazy Halloween activities the 25th – 29th, and The Salem Sisters from Wonderland Character Entertainment will be visiting the museum on the 28th and 29th. Be sure to pre-register for our special classes, you don’t want to miss out!
With all that in mind, let’s pretend to be witches, wizards, or ghouls and paint a spooky cauldron work of art. You can make this as complicated or as easy as you want. I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Greetings, cosmonauts! October has so many fun holidays to celebrate, though as an educator I wanted to highlight World Space Week (WSW), which goes from October 4th– 10th. This international celebration of the cosmos has been around since 1999 and this year, WSW is about “Space and Entrepreneurship” recognizing all the potential opportunities that space has to offer.
Even though we are unable to celebrate World Space Week together at Explore & More, due to our temporary closure, there are many opportunities at home and in the community to provide children with hands-on experiences.
The best way to start learning about space at home is to spend some time outside! With something as vast as outer space, start with what we can see from Earth, the Sun and the Moon. Since it is never safe to stare at the sun directly, try a nighttime observation of the sky. Make your own “telescope” by decorating a cardboard tube to help focus on the moon and discover the constellations. Constellations are groups of stars that early astronomers connected to form a pattern. There are over 80 official constellations that represent mythological figures or stories such as the Little Dipper, Hercules or Pegasus (Farmers’ Almanac 2023).
As stargazing becomes a new tradition, grab a notebook or drawing pad to begin tracking the star positions each night. Use the North Star, or Polaris, to orientate yourself north and record the locations of the stars overhead to find constellations or to make your own pattern. Over time, the rotational journey of the Earth will reveal more of the night sky and new constellations to discover!
We are greatly looking forward to reopening and exploring space together with activities like making Pipe Cleaner Constellations in the Tinkering Tank and preparing for the Solar Eclipse of 2024! Stay tuned for more information about this monumental event.
Fall is in the air here in Buffalo and Western New York, and it feels so refreshing! The trees, the weather, the football– all just make you want to enjoy the beautiful outdoors! Fall is a great time to talk with young children about concepts that are important for them to learn. One is the idea of “change”—about leaves changing color and dropping from trees, mornings becoming cooler, and night arriving earlier. Children see changes but may not have a sense of the four seasons or that the seasons cycle every year. Another concept is before and after, which changes in the day can help define.
Some trees stay green, but others change the color of their leaves and even lose those leaves. Taking a walk through the leaves and trees gives you many opportunities to notice that some stay the same, but some are different because of the changing season.
“Before the sun goes down, let’s go for a walk. After it goes down, it will be dark outside, and we’ll play inside.”
If a child has a limited vocabulary, you may need to use visual aids, such as photos of the trees in the summer and in the fall. You can help them sequence the seasons and add more photos for winter and spring. Talk about the sequence—before and after—and talk about the changes—same or different. Expand their vocabulary by adding examples of why something is different. (“The tree looks different because the leaves are gone.”) This game can be played at the table or if you’re an early childhood educator, during circle time and is limited only by your imagination and photos or objects that can be sorted.
There are many ways to expand on the concepts of same and different, such as using materials from home and the classroom and sorting them into two sets (socks vs. T-shirts, Legos vs. wooden blocks). Likewise, there are many ways to talk about what comes before and what comes after. A visual schedule of the day is a convenient way to practice before and after and helps young children understand what activity will happen next. It will help the child to predict daily routines. Visual schedules again can be made with photos for home or for school. A home schedule for the morning may have a photo of waking up, getting out of bed, getting dressed, eating breakfast, and leaving home. A school schedule likewise may start with a photo of entering the classroom, followed by the next activity or routine. For children who have difficulty learning a sequence, make it simple and start with two or three photos. Once the child recognizes the early sequence, you can add more photos before and after.
Concepts such as same and different are abstract until you help a child identify what (color, shape, function, size) makes something the same as or different from something else. It can take repeated practice for children with learning concerns to grasp that same and different can apply to many characteristics. It’s best to start with what is happening in the child’s life and is visible in everyday activities. Then build upon the initial learning to help the child recognize that there are many ways of “sorting” items or pictures into same and different categories. Children gain a sense of mastery when they learn to sort.
Concepts of time also are challenging for young children. Again, most young children are not aware of ways to measure the passage of time (whether by clock or by season). They can learn the sequence of their day, however, if the routines are stable and recur each day. For example, children in some families learn that breakfast comes after dressing, while others learn that breakfast comes before dressing; likewise, they learn that outdoor play at school comes after circle time and before snack time. Learning before and after helps children to understand schedules in their day and to predict what comes next. What a sense of confidence they have when they know before and after!
Come learn, play, and grow with us! Bring a friend with you next time you visit the children’s museum and share the benefits of how Explore & More is impacting your family.
Looking forward to seeing you at Explore & More very soon,
Lisa Chrapowicz Director of Strategic & Community Initiatives
October recalls memories of apple picking, pumpkin patches, and flannel shirts, though for most the first thought that comes to mind when thinking about October is Halloween! For many it is a time to feel like a kid again, and for many children it is time to embody the spirit of their favorite scary or not-so-scary character.
This October at Explore & More, children (and adults) will have plenty of opportunity to do trick-or-treating, dress-up, and many other Halloween themed crafts and activities. If you’re like me, you love this and look forward to these traditions every year; though have you ever pondered why we partake in these rather peculiar traditions in the first place. Dressing up, scaring people, begging for candy, and thinking of witchcraft, ghouls, and goblins, seem like rather strange activities for a holiday. So how did we get here?
There is not one simple answer, but historians agree that the origin of Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic pagan holiday of Samhain, which was often celebrated between October 31st and November 1st; the time that the harvest would end. During Samhain those celebrating believed “that the barriers between the physical world and the spirit world break down,” – (via the BBC) with this you can start to see how the notion of the supernatural became associated with this time of year. Participants would also dress in costumes mimicking spirits.
Fast forward centuries to when Christianity spread through Europe, and the Christian holidays of All Saints Day November 1st and All Souls Day on November 2nd, morphed with centuries old pagan traditions such as Samhain. Participants would dress up as saints, and angels. This celebration would come to be called Hallowmas, which eventually would come to be Halloween – (via History.com). Medieval Christians during Hallowmas would often go door to door in their communities in a quest for soul cakes, (think biscuits), these cakes would be exchanged for prayers and people (especially children) would partake in this throughout the holiday.
Advancing multiple centuries again, we come to the newly created colonies, especially in the middle and south, where pieces of Halloween celebrations were brought with them into the Americas. Colonial festivities would be again centered around the late fall harvest. It was not until the flood of immigrants in the 1800s that Halloween would really take hold, these new Americans coming from areas such as Ireland brought with them their Christian and pagan traditions.
As the decades rolled on Halloween grew with the nation, parties were common, and trick-or-treating became a way for communities to encourage togetherness, especially as the suburbs began to draw families further apart. Halloween today is a multi-billion-dollar holiday, as people across the globe, and across WNY, celebrate. This Halloween take a minute and think about the history of this holiday, you might get inspired for a new costume!
