Sunday, July 16, 2006

Myths, Legends and the Mighty Waikato!!!

Our dear classmate Laffydaffy has inspired me to have you investigating the history of the Waikato through myths and legends, as a language activity, as well as through history, which is more like social studies. We will use inquiry methods to find out about our local history [herstory?] as well as geological facts.

AS clever GATE kids, I challenge you to find where the mythical ["The River That Ran Away"] and the scientific explanations overlap regarding the formation of the Waikato River. It is quite surprising how similar they are. Was it really Earth Giants rolling over that made cracks in the Earth for the River to follow??? How does a geologist explain the same phenomenon?

Also, we will prove our understanding of myths by writing our own to explain how a natural phenomenon came into being. Start thinking about a place thatis special to you.
For your personal mihi [described in term two], you should feel a connection to a river and mountain. Think about how you might make up a story to explain the creation of those places.
ALso, think about how to create a piece of artwork to represent your special place and the mythological creation of that place. Perhaps that will form the basis of your artwork for your clothing design...
8>)

We may go on a field trip walk around the riverbank to discover clues as to the history of our city.

14 comments:

Sig said...

The only kind of Myths and Legends that I'm interested in are Greek and Egyption! sorry for not being into it!

MrWoody said...

thanks you for your honesty - you know, there is no reason why we couldn't compare greek and egyptian myths and legends to other cultures legends - except that we need to have copies of them to read and some idea of how we will structure our work. perhaps we could do a comparative study of myths and legends from the cultures of our choice and then work out our own definition of what myths are, what legends are [they're not the same], how they differ, what their purpose is and then see if we can create our own either as a class, in groups or individually.
what do you think?
monseigner woodle

Jess said...

Maybe we should go on a field trip to the river and see if we can find anything really old that may tell us a bit about what hamilton was like ages ago!!!!!!!!

Urxan said...

Mr Woody, can I write a little story thing to portray the myth I invent?

Urxan

MrWoody said...

i agree wit hyou rpojtn ash - hence our conversation today about avoiding that boring repetition.
great call jess - there are a quite a few clues to our hamilton heritage on the river walk.
urxan - of course you would need to write a wee story to tell your myth. i really look forward to your written gems. you could illustrate it too.

Sig said...

I know a really great book in the Hamilton library about greek myths

Sig said...

And I think that that's a great idea

laffydaffy said...

Myths and legends are okay but we do it every year, sorry mr woody

Bubbles

p.s. i think you got confused with someone else, cause i don't remember saying anything to you

young_veteran said...

we should create our own myths about what ever we like. but other then that myths and legends are dumb.

MrWoody said...

right - brillaint - i agree. so all we have to do is read th eone o i mentioned, compare it to a scientific view, write a really brief but cool one oursleves, that relates to our personal feeling of belonging, in maori, with perfect grammar, punctuation, and presented to a publishable standard using multimedia technologies, the net, things no one else has heard of yet and then laugh with satisfaction at how clever we are. and i bet we could do it all in one day. shall we?
oh and we could write them in spanish as well.
i bet you a hundred dollars. NO! - a game of capture the flag using the whole field and in combination with the dreaded year eight GATE class as your partners.
you could take on any other two classes who dared step up to the challengee - in fact - why don't we invite classes to a multi-challenge event competition thing that you can make up all the competitions for - e.g. best garageband tune, best imovie, best wall display, best netball team, best fashion show, best whatever!
do it.
maybe you could suggest to our great team leader that we do a fashion show for our team production. a really full on spectacular one. think of a theme -make it however you want. but make it great!!!

MrWoody said...

cool - anyone can study anything they want - friday arvo personal topic time - i told you today. why don't you speak up in class? you'll end up feeling comfortable about public speaking and get a say in what you learn. i know it's hard. just come and tell me if you don't want to say it in front of the whole class. however, it is good practise for the term three speeches they will make you do. [i have ways of making it eay fo ryou. don't worry.]

【※ 『§mr. brainy§』 ※】 said...

So we choose watever we want to do?

laffydaffy said...

Hey, I found out that there are 2 rivers and 1 mountain in Somalia and i've got my own myth ready.

MrWoody said...

amazingly fantastic alalamaa! i'm so pleased to have someone so excited and organised and ready to work to produce something really cooool!!!
you can do it! we plan it as a class all day every day until we have a plan - agreed...?
and we use the internet, the iwrite stuff, the computers, our planning, experts, design skills, team work, time mamangment, everything!!!!
yaaayyy!!!!!