Columbus and cumulonimbus

 When I was growing up, Columbus was just part of the body of knowledge that every elementary student had.

It became problematic--Columbus Day became Indigenous People Day.  I don't want to get into the politics of it, but I think that it is important information for people to know, whether or not he was a good guy.

(And I never met him so I don't have an opinion on that one.)

One of my students brought it up.  She was wondering what it was because her mom is a student and she didn't have school yesterday and my student was wondering why.  She is an English learner so it took me awhile to understand her question, but I finally go there.

I asked if anyone had heard of Columbus and none of them had.

I got the globe and I said, "OK, I have a story for you."

They wiggled happily on their spots on the kiva and one of them said, "I love stories!"

I told them about how some people thought the world was flat. That floored them.  

One student reasoned, "Well, it is hard to tell if you just have a flat map and not a globe."

One boy got fixated on the idea of falling off the earth.  "But could you ever fall off the earth?"  I said no.

A girl said, "Because of gravity!"

He was still worried, "What about the moon, could you fall off that?"

No.

"Could you fall off any planet?"  It was like he was planning to travel and wondered if he would be safe.

I showed them India on the map and talked about why people wanted to get there and why it was hard to get there.

"That's far away!" one of them said.  

"And you couldn't take a plane, because they weren't invented," another said.

I told them Columbus thought he could cross the ocean to get to India.  He got the Spanish king and queen to back him to try to get there because he didn't think the world was flat.  (One student, from Argentina, was thrilled because his grandpa lives in Spain.)

We talked about where Columbus landed and since he thought he was in India, what do you think he called the people?

Indians!  Everything was coming together for them.

I said, "Now we have Columbus, Ohio and The District of Columbia and Columbia, South Carolina and the country Colombia and they are all named after Columbus."

One of my students stood up and said solemnly, "Teacher, this is where I am from."

"Yes," I said.  "I know."

"I was born in Colombia," he proudly said.  I told him that was great.

They were buzzing with excitement of their newfound knowledge.

During science I told them that they would learn how to predict if it was going to rain by the clouds.  They leaned in closer.  We learned about cumulus and cumulonimbus and stratus and stratonimbus clouds.  They drew them in a little book and we talked all about the differences and what kinds of storms they cause.  I showed them impressive pictures of cumulonimbus clouds and had them turn and tell someone about a big storm they'd been in.

(Ask me how I know not to have them tell the entire class about the biggest storm they'd been in.  It gets out of hand and no one has time to listen to 26 children retell in minute detail their storm because they all want to and then some of them remember another storm.)

I told them we were going to go on the world's shortest field trip.  We went outside and they looked at the clouds and discussed and debated what kinds of clouds they saw.

I love being a teacher.