Inuksuk

Evan's Inuksuk

On our first day of studying Canada, we covered the First Nations and the animals of Canada.  (The French and the English arrive later.)  Eskimo is an Algonquin word meaning "eaters of raw meat."  The 'eskimo' call themselves Inuit- "people".

Our hands-on project for the day was experimenting and building Inuksuk. 

Inuk means 'person' in the Inut language, suk means 'substitute'.

The inuksuk was used by the Inuit in Canada to show people the way.

Did you know Canada changed her map in 1995 to recognize the Nunavet Territory in Northeast Canada in 1995?  The Nunavut flag prominently features an Inuksuk and the North Star.

Xavier's first Inuksuk

The book we read to guide our project explained that the Inuksuk acted as Arctic messengers of stone.  It contained comments from several Inuit who were born in the 1915-1930s.  It seems that though Inuksuit are "people substitues", they are really not intended to look like people;  at least that is not the goal.  I saw many inuksuk trinkets in a Canadian souvenir shop this summer and I think that as their popularity spreads they will be increasingly equated with having a human like form.

A "hole" in an inuksuk communicates that direction that should be taken.

They can also have a more cairn like shape or arrow like features for pointing the way.

A larger inuksuk

Around the world in 15 weeks. . .

or maybe 16 or 17.  Evan requested studying other countries this semester.  We had somewhat skipped over a unit that included Japan in order to study New York and Connecticut (Ahem, boys where are those posts?) before our summer trip.   I had already collected some resources for that, so we're off!  We are taking the rest of the summer to do some miscellaneous stuff, but we already started reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (a French author- nice how that works out.) It's a hit with the boys so far, although the vocabulary is challenging for them.  The DVD of one of the movie versions is waiting for us, also. This past weekend, I outlined what our semester might look like.

Starting Monday August 26- Each country 1 week, unless noted.
Canada
France (2 weeks)
Spain
Mexico
South America (TBD)
Ancient Baghdad
Japan (2 weeks)
India
Morocco
Tanzania
South Africa
Australia (2 weeks)

The order is something similar to that, but I don't have my calendar in front of  me and I need to get off the computer instead of finding it.  We interrupted our sleep last night to go out and look at meteors from the Perseid shower.  Xavier was non-responsive at 4am, but very disappointed today that he missed it.  He told me to "drop him on the floor" to wake him up and if that didn't work to "pull his ears"!  He really wants to see a shooting star.

On a final note, the boys put together my old world map puzzle (pictured above).  Cole quickly pointed out that it has the USSR instead of Russia and the current countries; Evan is displeased with the Mercator projection which causes Greenland to appear larger than the United States; and it is missing two edge pieces. Update:  Both pieces have been found. . . though I had decided that since the earth has neither edges or corners, the missing pieces weren't such a big deal.   Hmmmm, maybe someone will get a new map puzzle for his birthday. . . .