Native American rotations

Today, the fourth graders experienced various Native American traditions in the school cafeteria.  There were five stations set up - coloring totem poles, creating boats, playing pogo sticks, drawing pictographs and making cornbread.  Two classes rotated through the stations in the morning and the other two classes did it in the afternoon.  I only helped in the morning.  

I was in charge of the pictographs.  Each kid got a rock to decorate with pictographs and some example pictographs.  I wasn't convinced the kids would be into it and would instead want to draw emojis on the rocks or something equally annoying.  Boy was I wrong.  The kids were so into it.  Most of them made detailed "stories" on the rocks all with pictographs. 

Here's the station set up before any kids arrived.  

 The kids were into all the stations.  Here's Leo working on a boat at a different station.  There were 10 kids in each group and they had 15 minutes in each station.

 He arrived at my station and got to work on his rock.  One kid asked if he could have a different rock because his was "bumpy".  Um, no.

 Here's the end result.  I got pretty good at reading them.  His says "man hunt deer".

 I knew I didn't want to do anything with food when the sign up sheet went out, but I was extra glad I avoided the food station when I found out they had to chant while making cornbread.  Here's Leo and Amy not chanting along while mashing corn with a mortar and pestle.

All and all it was a fun morning and I was so impressed by the kids' engagement with the activity.  Of course, it was still exhausting.