Kim Deibert
We are ‘growing’ butterflies in our kindergarten classroom, and the other day they started to emerge from their chrysalis. The night before class (the kids hadn’t seen them yet) I was researching bark biting for National Aboriginal Day. I came across a story that linked the two topics (I’m still not sure how that worked!) and as I read it had the story about Nanabush teaching human babies how to walk. She collected stones, threw them into the air and they turned into butterflies. The babies, enthralled by the winged creatures, stood up and tried to chase them…thus walking! Wow, what a timely discovery for me! So I gathered some pebbles, and a handful of ‘fake’ butterflies to tell the story. I hid the butterflies in my pocket for dramatic effect, and when I threw the pebbles into the air, they were butterflies! Needless to say, the children were entranced (as was my EA!). Then one child raised his hand and informed me that one of the insects was not a butterfly. I looked down, I had inadvertently grabbed a fake scorpion instead! Too funny. A teacher in the staff room later said, “That’s how they taught the babies how to run!!!”
Here is the link Eyetooth/Nanabush pdf
