Fifth graders got a taste of experiential literature last week. Students began reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George in English class. As they imagined Sam Gribley stuck in his house made inside a hemlock tree for two days because of a snowstorm, they pretended to be in the same situation by crawling underneath a fabric roof suspended from our desktops while listening to the sounds of a snowstorm. Inside this mock fort, students read aloud the first chapter of Sam’s adventure of living off the land in the Catskills Mountains. Students will continue to experience aspects of Sam’s life through a variety of activities, including a workshop with a falconer and a feast made of the natural foods Sam would have used to survive.
Our Taste of the Mountain
