Tuesday, December 23, 2014

The Legend of the Poinsettia




In this Mexican folktale, The Legend of the Poinsettia, it is a tradition in Lucida’s village for each family to bring a gift to baby Jesus at the Nativity on Christmas Eve.  Lucida’s family had been asked to weave a new blanket for the figure of baby Jesus as their gift.  When Mama gets sick and cannot finish the blanket, Lucida is worried that her family will not have a gift.  On Christmas Eve, an old woman tells Lucida that any gift is beautiful because it is given.  Lucida brings a armful of weeds to the Nativity and because of her sincerity, they are somehow transformed into beautiful red star flowers, the poinsettia.

We took three days to read this book, first the beginning, then the middle, and finally the ending.  After each reading we asked and answered the Five W Questions (Who? What? Where?When? Why?).  

The students seemed to be fascinated with this idea of weaving.  We had first read about it in one of our Native American stories in November.  Because of this, we did some simple weaving with paper strips.  Since then it has been really fun to see the students observing weaving in the threadbare knees of their jeans and banners on the walls.

A continuing theme last week and this was the idea of What will be our gift to Jesus?  


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