Norse Mythology Week 2

I have lots of planning notes for this block on my website. Here was Week 2:

Monday, May 4

• recall and add "The Valkyries and Valhalla" to MLB
• hear new story: "Freya's Wonderful Necklace"

Tuesday, May 5

• recall and add "Freya's Wonderful Necklace" to MLB
• explore etymology of < Brisingamen >
• suggested necklace artwork ideas:
  construction paper collage of chunky colorful stones, drawing a necklace inspired by intricate Celtic knots, drawing a heart (since Freya is the goddess of love) with the necklace encircling it
• look at Celtic knot illustrations from Mindware coloring book

Thursday, May 7

• read Iduna and the Magic Apples retold by Marianna Mayer

• assign parts, outline scenes, begin to draft lines for a table read script

main characters:

Iduna, goddess who keeps the apples of eternal life
Odin
, head Norse god
Loki, jotun and blood-brother to Odin
Thiassi
, jotun

supporting characters:

Bragi, god and son of Odin
 (Scene 5)
crowd of gods at Asgard
 (Scene 5)
the three Norns
 (Scene 6)

narrator


Here is the outline of the scenes:

Scene 1
Iduna at her garden, Odin and Loki come by to get some apples



Scene 2
Odin and Loki camping, Thiassi comes by and keeps their meat from cooking, then allows it to cook but steals most of it, Loki hits him with a stick and his hands get stuck to it and Thiassi carries him off


Scene 3
Loki and Thiassi make a deal



Scene 4
Loki persuades Iduna to leave her garden and Thiassi carries her off


Scene 5
the gods in Asgard begin to get old, Bragi suggests that they search for Iduna, Odin and Bragi go to the Norns



Scene 6
the Norns tell them that Loki tricked Iduna and he’s the only one who can save her, make the cloak of falcon feathers and throw it over Loki’s shoulders, Loki flies away



Scene 7
Loki arrives in Jotunheim and rescues Iduna by transforming her into a small grey bird, they fly away



Scene 8
Thiassi chases them, they fly as far as the walls of Asgard but he is closing in, Odin orders everybody to light fires and the large bird is caught in the flames



Scene 9
Odin turns Iduna back into her goddess form, she gives everyone an apple, and they have a huge feast

Friday, May 8

• compile student-written dialogue into a script, revise, and perform

I absolutely love teaching Norse Mythology, and this is my third time doing it. It has been hard for me to let go of all of the things I planned for us to do in the classroom here which we now can't do -- form drawings of intricate Celtic knots, counted cross-stitch projects, watercolor paintings of scenes from the myths, plant-dyeing yarn and weaving it into our beautiful Nine Norse Worlds tapestry, table reads of play scripts dramatizing the myths, beeswax modeling, making Viking recipes, playing lots of chess -- but I'm trying to see this as an opportunity to try some new things we haven't tried before. It's a chance to be creative and do things in a different way!

So, instead of having a large group and performing a play script written by someone else for our table read (there are lots of great FREE sources for Waldorf class plays), we simply wrote our own and kept it to the number of people we had available to come to our Zoom session, including some moms and sisters and brothers. It was really fun!

I also found several Celtic knot drawing art lessons on TpT which I will give to students next week:

Celtic Knot Drawing Worksheets - Instructions with Activity Sheets

St Patrick's Day Coordinate Graphing and Coloring Page with Celtic Design

Celtic Knot Drawing Using Symmetry and Grids

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