Week 3: The Struggle of Creativity
This week I hit a wall. I’m not going to lie this was a hard week for me, research wise, creativity wise, and time wise. After spending the summer researching and reading all about Florida history and the indigenous tribes that lived throughout the Central part of the state, I completely neglected: children’s activities.
This is not the first time I have had to create curriculum for children's lessons or activities. A few years ago, I helped create an activity program with the Quivera Council for Boy Scouts of America to teach scout values to children in at-risk schools. I also ran a children's entertainment business where my entire job was creating activities for kids and having fun, but, taking the events of history and breaking them down into digestible bites is one thing; creating an interactive lesson for people to learn said historical events is an entirely different ball game.
When I first began my internship, I was provided with a packet that listed several different activity ideas that the Osceola history staff had thought of I then tried to supplement those activities with several of my own along with interact the idea of interactive Maps and timelines. Actually having to sit down and write the directions for 4th graders, draw out the coloring sheets and maps that they would then be filling in, and figuring out if there are any books or readings that are appropriate for the unit has taken up the majority of my week.
The other problem that I am continuously facing is that a lot of activities that you find for free on teacher websites or Pinterest are meant to be done in groups. Unfortunately, given the current circumstances activities that are done in groups inside is pretty much impossible. So, I have been trying to find activities that can be placed inside the student passport that I am creating can be done individually and yet still be fun whether you are learning at school or are distance learning.
However, there is one activity that has continuously plagued me this week and that is The Edible Chickee.
A Chickee is the traditional structure that Seminoles lived in for hundreds of years. It consists of a frame of cypress logs, an elevated platform, and a thatched roof made from palmetto leaves. Given Florida’s hot and humid climate, they are a constructed in such a way to mitigate the heat. By elevating the platform, they allow for cooler air to circulate under the structure and the lack of walls creates a cross breeze that makes them relatively comfortable. At Pioneer Village, there are two chickee structures that have been constructed by members of the Seminole nation.
This description does little to offer any advice on materials that would make an edible reproduction of the structure, and I must admit that with my background in historical baking I’m a little vexed. I should know how to do this! I know what snacks kids like! I will continue to update on this culinary quandary I am facing, as I put it on the backburner for a little bit, to read more about some of the other activities I have been looking at adding to the packet.
Image Source: Seminole chickee in MacCauley’s report (MacCauley 1887). (Courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Neg. No. 1178-N-8-1.)
