I read over the assignment:using scraps of fabric, paper and other items from around the house Hannah needed to make a collage of our family's culture.
First, I had to figure out what exactly our culture is? I usually associate culture with ethnicity and seeing as how we are on the far side of the ethnicity bar I was stumped. Second, I am a stickler about making it Hannah's project and not mine, even though I will happily help, I want to be sure HER ideas are transformed.
And so, a discussion with my 4 1/2 year old pursued. I asked her if she knew what culture was. She did not. I asked her if her class has been talking about families. No. And so I jumped in and explained that culture is what makes a family special and unique. We talked a little bit about culture and then I asked her what she thought made out family unique..she was stumped. So I told her to think about it and when she thinks of something that makes our family special then we will talk about it and start her project.
All day Friday I thought about it. What is my family's culture? Of course my train of thought went right to our heritage. I can trace my lineage back to 1406, my great grandfather immigrated to America from Ireland. Brandon's lineage is said to date back to the Vikings, but that's all we know there. He is 1/4 Native American:Cherokee and Blackfoot, and Quanah Parker is in his lineage.
I thought that maybe this was too deep for a almost 5 year old's task and, realistically this says nothing about our present day culture. Outside of eating black eyed beans for New Years I don't know of any lasting Irish traditions in my family. We don't attend Pow wows, although apparently Brandon used to dance in them as a child...so what does this have to do with our culture? This says nothing, really about who we are.
In fact, the only thing I could think of was our religion: Christianity. Our lives circle around the Theme of God. Everything we do, practically is centered around him. We go to church two times weekly, hold other bible studies in our home, read his word, pray with our kids, celebrateChristian holidays:Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter...Our identity, literally, is in Christ. Therefore to me, Christ and his saving grace is our main focus. couldvthis then be our family's culture?
Saturday came and went without much focus on homework. Instead we just had a family day. Family, I scoff slightly because our home rarely, if ever, contains just the five of us. While the kids and I were playing, there were also 3/4 Cordova kids present: Anthony is referred to as Uncle by my kids, Alex was Hannah's first word, Angela and Andrew are practically their older siblings. Aaron, also known as Uncle, or Tio as he likes to be called, was also here later that night. Ashia, She-A, lives with us and is like a sister to me and an Auntie to my kids, and then there were two of the youth kids here spending the day as well. As the night wore on, I thought this too is part of our culture accepting church members as family, and opening up our home to others in need of love, peace and rest. That night, while I was tucking Hannah into bed, I again asked her what she thought made our family special. She replied "you mean like books?" Puzzled I inquired further. "You know, like how you read us books every night." She responded matter of factly, but I was taken aback. Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Something so simple that only a 4 year old could come up with it. I kissed her atop her head, we said our prayers, and I promised her that we would work on her homework after church the following day.
And that is precisely what we did.
I pulled out my chaotic mess of a craft bin, full of odds and ends left over from DIY Christmas gifts, kid crafts and floral arrangements. She pulled out a partially assembled bear kit-one of those first sewers crafts that had been given to me years ago. Desiree and Mariah had started them a couple of years back but left them unfinished. Hannah was instantly drawn to them, and so with my help we assembled them into a flat bear family. Since there were only two big bear cutouts and two small cutouts she found some pink fabric scraps and asked me to make another little bear since "there are five of us" she of course was to be the fifth bear-pink, her favorite color. Fom there I helped her hot glue the bear family to a Christmas striped fabric strip.the bears don some button eyes and flower stickers as well as fabric kangaroo pockets with hearts on them because "God says to love everyone." Hannah then scavenged the house to find a trinket that represents each member of the family. She chose a small plastic dinosaur for Zechi, a Polly pocket dog for herself and a Polly pocket kitten for Tabby. It's true, tabs does love our cat! She carries the sucker around for as long as sassy will let her and the dang cat is almost as long as tabs is tall! She ten chose a paint brush for me and wanted her daddy to have a Bible. After making a pretend Bible to stick in the daddy pocket out of miscellaneous go fish cards, she decided that all the bears should have Bibles because "we like to have Bible study." So four more were made. Daddy got to add one of his Magic cards since "we all have two."
Once the collage was assembled Hannah used a fabric marker to write our family names under each corresponding bear. Spelling assistance was needed.
Her original idea was to turn the fabric into a pillow case but with the plastic toys on it, she and Ommie hemmed the edges and made a Bannor to hang in her wall for after she turns it in and gets it back.
It was such a fun project to see Hannah describe our family's "culture" through her eyes. And you know what... She nailed it!
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