California History Class

We attended the first class in a four part series on California History.  We began by learning about the earliest California residents.  The kids learned the names of the various Native American tribes and families that have lived in our state, as well as to a couple of the theories regarding their arrival.  They did a fantastic job finding our city on the map and relating the various tribe names to our local area.

After that, we discussed the missions—oh it would be so neat to visit them!  We learned about the three primary stages of the missions: acquisition, secularization and confiscation.  Big words, so we got a nice vocabulary lesson tucked in there!

Class ended with the kids in teams beginning their mission building project.  Eyes got big when they saw the finished product on the packaging.  They couldn’t believe the jumble of materials would end up looking like that beautiful building!

This is going to be a great class!