No Man is an Island

Because current active volcanoes are on islands and are forming new islands as I type (in Japan, the Canary Islands, Hawaii and even, fleetingly, there was a new island in Pakistan ) it was only natural to follow up volcanoes with a study of islands.

I love Kids Discover magazines and the KD "Islands" was the base of information for this mini unit inside our geology unit. I added the tactile aid of some Hawaiian coral, and used some other activity books from Hawaii to add some Hawaiian culture and language to our studies.

We made large notebook pages from 11"x17"paper, folded in half. On the front we recorded definitions of island words like atoll, archipelago, barrier island, etc. On the backside we recorded associative scriptures that we discussed the meaning of (2 Nephi 10:20-21 and Doctrine & Covenants 1:1-2). The inside was a map and information spread where we noted interesting facts of various islands such as that Indonesia is the country with the most islands at about 17,500, and Greenland is the largest island with 840,000 square miles.

You can't really study geology without geography mixed in, so we continued some map activity by looking at photos of different islands and finding them on world maps.  (I have a stockpile of calendars that I collect for the pictures--from the dollar store or cheaply elsewhere when they go on a rock-bottom sale around February--and I pulled out the ones with island photos.)

For Language Arts and additional Social Studies the kids each researched and wrote a report on Iceland.

Each child also read and wrote a short book report on this book:

Then, in what became a highlight for me, we studied three versions of "No Man is an Island" and wrote comparison essays on them. 

The first and original use of the phrase came from poet and pastor John Donne (1572-1631).  The passage now titled "No Man is an Island" is from MEDITATION XVII from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. (Phrases from this passage have lived on and inspired such works as Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.  Donne also penned the poem "Death Be Not Proud.")

No Man is an Island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 

own were; any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind. 

And therefore never send to know for whom 

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

In 1950, Joan Whitney and Alex Kramer penned a song, "No Man is an Island" which The Letterman performed and added to their repertoire.

No Man is an Island

No man is an island

No man stands alone

Each man's joy is joy to me

Each man's grief is my own

We need one another

So I will defend

Each man as my brother

Each man as my friend

I saw the people gather

I heard the music start

The song that they were singing

Is ringing in my heart

No man is an island

Way out in the blue

We all look to the one above

For our strength to renew

When I help my brother

Then I know that I

Plant the seed of friendship

That will never die

Then, earlier this year, American contemporary Christian music band Tenth Avenue North released their version of "No Man is an Island," a song that moved me from the second I first heard it and has had a very powerful affect on me and my kids.

Lyrics in poetry form