Fifth Grade Builds Cabins
By Sylvia Johanson
November 07, 2007
Determined, courageous, and trustworthy are only a few of the qualities of the twelve-year old boy Matt in the book by Elizabeth George Speare, The Sign of the Beaver. Mrs. Johanson’s Fifth Grade class at Olympia West relived some of the frustration as well as the sense of accomplishment that Matt must have felt surviving alone in the wilderness by building log cabins described in the book. The students’ goal was to create the cabin and surrounding areas described in the first five chapters of the book. Many children used sticks gathered from fallen trees and rabbit fur to build realistic examples of the simple home Matt and his father made in the wilderness of Maine. In the book, Matt must remain at the cabin alone while his father returns to Massachusetts to bring his mother, sister, and new baby to the home they have prepared for them. Everyone is enjoying the novel and the children wanted to share their cabins with the school by displaying them in the Olympia West Library.
