Tongva!

The last couple days have been pretty off schedule in room 19. That's not always a bad thing; in fact, for the students it's usually fun. For the teacher it's a bit unsettling, however.

First, yesterday we had a special assembly in the morning organized by Fred Escheverria, a parent in room 13, of representatives from the Tongva nation. These are the native peoples of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. They're sometimes also called "Gabrielino" since they were stationed at the San Gabriel Mission after conversion. They did a great presentation about their language, culture, and music. They even did a dance which I managed to catch a bit of on my camera.

We had to leave a little early, unfortunately, because we had our Music class. Mr. Lawton worked some more with the students on their songwriting project. After recess, the students went to Mr. Pratt where they are finishing their study of early American explorers in California and the Bear Flag revolt. After lunch, we had a quick math lesson.

We finished the day with a celebration of Mardi Gras. The DuMont family, originally hailing from the Crescent City, gave us the history of Mardi Gras and then provided our class and Mrs. Mark's class with King Cakes to share. It was a great opportunity for the students.