The Long Winter

W and I finished reading The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have read it so many times, yet reading the full book aloud was a wonderful experience. W took turns reading several chapters to me as well. We have had The Mild Winter here in New Hampshire this year, which was pretty unusual. So we have had to make due with imaginary snowballs and paper snowflakes for the most part (but I'll take that)!

See the flour in the drawer?

Ironically, our book club has been pushed back due to weather (the one day it was freezing rain/hail/snow here), so we will meet this Friday, barring inclement weather. We tried out the activity we had planned anyway last week, as I was not even sure it would work very well. We used an old fashioned coffee mill to grind wheat (using hard white wheat seed). It takes a couple of turns through the mill but it does wind up producing  flour. Next up, grinding enough to actually make bread. This will take a while. It was difficult enough for W to turn the crank so it showed him how hard it would have been for the Ingalls family to endlessly grind wheat to survive during their most difficult winter on the prairies of South Dakota.

Here are some highlights from W, age 6 and 11/12ths :)
"I liked the parts about Pa helping to dig out the train line, and the wheat in the wall that Almanzo had. I liked Merry Christmas when they were all excited, and Christmas in May. The chapters when Almanzo and Cap Garland went to find more wheat were good. And I liked when Almanzo made pancakes for himself and his brother."

FIAR: A New Coat for Anna

A New Coat for Anna by Harriet Ziefert is a post WWII story of a young girl who has outgrown her coat and her mother then uses things to barter with the farmer, spinner, weaver and tailor to get a new coat for her daughter. The book ends at Christmas time so it was nice to read this time of year, if you can find it at your library I recommend it. We rowed this book not "in a row", but rather over the course of a couple weeks as it overlapped some of W's other studies (a Little House book club carding/ spinning demonstration this fall, and also rowing Warm as Wool by Scott Russell Sanders).

Yesterday we had our FIAR co-op and used strongly brewed tea and blueberry natural dye to dye some strands of yarn and they came out really cute. We didn't use any mordant (these kids are young so this was a good demonstration anyway) but I can see getting into this and using our small loom to make some woven squares. W has done finger knitting in the past but I might reintroduce it to him again since it may help him slow down and focus while working on something relaxing and productive.

W hung his yarn on the tree and it makes a cute garland. This week we are preparing for Caleb's birthday, as well as preparing our home for puppies. We didn't initially plan on this happening now, but have hoped to get a dog for years and all of a sudden things fell into place pretty quickly. ;)

Teddy Bear Picnic & Little House stuff

We missed co-op this week unfortunately, but W and C decided they wanted to have a Teddy Bear Picnic anyway (the theme they did this week) with an apple feast. :) Jacob often sings this song to them, so we sang and watched it on youtube and gathered pretend and real food for our picnic. The boys enjoy a lot of imaginary play together. Most of the time this features cars, trains, or legos, but W has a renewed interest in his stuffed friends lately.

 Pooh enjoyed it, but it looks like Paddington passed out. 

Today we had our Little House book club, one of the moms in our group was very kind to bring a demonstration of a spinning wheel, carding wool, and knitting needles so the boys had a great time trying this first hand. We ate some homemade applesauce for snack. It was a low turnout but we had fun anyway, and I hope some more families will be able to make it next time. I will need to think of a good November activity. W and I finished By the Shores of Silver Lake this week, and will begin The Long Winter soon. 

By the Shores of Silver Lake

W and I began reading By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder last week. I was somewhat reluctant to start it with him since he is in "first grade" and this book is the turning point in the series when Laura begins to grow up very quickly. He thought the Garth Williams cover looked exciting and he recently finished On the Banks of Plum Creek, so he wanted to read the next one. I have read it many times, but it really hit me (again) anyway and of course I was in tears by the end of chapter two. W just wanted me to keep reading as he was absorbed in the story. We are currently on chapter nine. So far W said his favorite part was when they arrived at the new camp and found Uncle Henry and their cousins Charley and Louisa there, since it was such a surprise to meet more of the characters from the Big Woods again.


I always felt touched by Laura being "eyes" for her blind sister Mary, but reading the amazingly detailed descriptions of all of the Little House books, I realize how that may have actually helped Laura really see things in depth herself and later use that gift as a literary tool. It is pretty well known that her daughter Rose Wilder Lane had a hand in heavily editing the books, but I have read many of Rose's other works and although she definitely had a gift for storytelling, it just wasn't the same as her mother's descriptions. 

"Mary" and "Laura"

Last week our Little House book club met for the first time this fall, and we have some new members along with friends from last year and it was a really nice time. The kids and Moms made corn husk dolls and chatted about the books. We dried some corn husks on a low temperature in the oven (took about an hour) and soaked them again the morning of the book club so they would bend easily to work with. It is something we would do again, we used wooden doll heads to attach since they were a bit easier to draw on, but all the dolls came out pretty cute.

Lessons from Little House

Our family enjoys watching Little House on the Prairie, and in an episode we watched last Friday, the kids had a conversation which I found rang so true. Mary was trying to force her little sister Carrie (around age 3) to work on her alphabet, while Carrie wanted to draw pictures. It is important for children to learn things at their own pace, and this was a reminder to me also not to push W too much with writing when it's not what he wants to do, since he has a lot of time to work on that and boys of this age are somewhat notorious for not wanting to write. 

image courtesy of http://thefeedandseed.tripod.com

Here's the transcript of that particular scene from Little House (first season, For the Love of Johnny Johnson episode):


Mary: Here, Carrie. Let's make letters. (proceeds to start writing on the slate)
Carrie: Pictures.
Mary: No, Carrie, we're going to make letters.
Carrie: Pictures.
Mary: Letters.
Carrie: Pictures!
Mary: Letters!
Carrie: Pictures!
Laura: Let her draw! Why do you always have to spoil everything, anyway?
Mary: I don't know what you're talking about.
Laura: You do too. We always used to have fun walking home, and now all you do is show off playing "teacher."
Mary: That's silly.
(continues into an argument and Laura storms off)...


I know W will master the lower case alphabet someday, but he is 6 and many times would rather play outside or do other projects, so sometimes I need to let it go. :) I want to encourage him to write some letters or postcards more often to use that as practice time instead of forcing the workbooks every day.


We have our first Little House book club meeting of the fall on Friday, and we'll be attempting to make some corn cob dolls. We are starting the book By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder this week. 

Reading Together: Little House

W is currently reading Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I am so happy he likes it! Even if he scoffs it when he is older I will treasure these memories with him. This is the book for spring for our homeschool book club which meets next week. He is now able to read full chapter books on his own, but we are doing this book as a family read aloud so we often read together and take turns reading a page at a time out loud. It is so neat to re-read this book in a new way for me and see it through different eyes. Occasionally we watch episodes of the show (keeping in mind that a lot of the things in the show differ greatly from the books and real life.) But we enjoy it anyway for what it is. ;) 

In case I haven't mentioned it enough on this blog, I love Laura Ingalls Wilder, her books, history & home sites. I recently bought the book The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure, which is a hilarious romp through modern day Little House culture. It isn't meant for kids, although teens into the world of LH may appreciate it, and Moms definitely will. Wendy also has a blog and book tour so check out her site! The World of Little House by Carolyn Strom Collins is a book that young readers would enjoy, and it is available used on Amazon. If you and your child wants to learn about the real-life history of Laura Ingalls, I highly recommend visiting Nansie Cleaveland's brilliant Pioneer Girl website and blog. Also the Beyond Little House website is a wonderful resource. It makes me want to visit all the LH sites again, hoping to when C gets a bit older! 

    

Mid Feb update :)

W finished reading Farmer Boy and despite both boys having colds we have been continuing our usual homeschooling routines the past week minus the whole playdate thing, hoping to see our friends again soon! We celebrated Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthday on Monday and made little maple cakes from the My First Little House Cookbook. The cake part was sweetened with maple syrup and W loved them. C loved the icing, also maple based. W also read a lot of the My First LH books that day. During our book club meeting a couple of weeks ago we watched the Almanzo Wilder documentary I mentioned in a previous post, which was produced by the multi talented Dean Butler who played "Manly" on the TV series. The kids ages 9-2 enjoyed it, and the Moms as well!

I am so so tempted to go to the Wayside Inn's ice harvesting demonstration this Saturday in Sudbury, MA. It would be very interesting to see the old fashioned way of "making" ice just like in Farmer Boy.

Last week we "rowed" Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews. It was first published in 1985 and is set in Ungava Bay, Canada. Upon looking up the map to give W a point of reference I was blown away at how far east Ungava Bay is (the link can show you the location on google maps).W made a booklet on the Inuit people and we found some printable resources online through Homeschoolshare.com. I love that site.

W watched the NOVA special How Smart Are Animals? which aired last night on PBS and he was absorbed. He told me he especially liked the octopus and how it "blends in" to its environment to camouflage itself. It was fascinating to see how quickly it could hide from predators. I had tuned in to watch the show myself but I was happily surprised that W enjoyed it so much.

   

New Year

It is back to homeschool reality after the holidays. It was fun having Jacob around the house, and our Christmas season stretched into the New Year and we all enjoyed it. W was eager to jump back into his usual routines. The snow which the boys enjoyed so much is now melted away and hardened into icy patches. The snow people have gone away for now, but are sure to be reincarnated after the next big snowfall. Last week we "rowed" Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton, not the perfect week for it but it was still seasonal. W was already familiar with the story and it has nice illustrations that the readers can spend a long time looking at and discussing (especially the Geoppolis map page). It gets kids thinking about directions.

This year I couldn't bring myself to make resolutions, although one thing I am striving for is finding a way for myself and the boys to keep active inside even though it is freezing outside. Some solutions which I have found extremely helpful include: indoor basketball, dancing to CDs (especially Imagination Movers and Taylor Swift), the Fisher-Price SmartCycle (Toy Story, Thomas the Tank Engine & Bob the Builder games), and yoga for kids DVDs that we can do together. So far I have resisted the rather strong urge to invest in a "real" video gaming system now that there are some neat interactive games on the market now although I would refuse to buy anything violent. I was never much for video games (in fact my Mom used to be much better at me on the original Nintendo Mario, she was the original gamer Mom!)

Today we are "rowing" a non- Five in a Row book but one that could easily be one: The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen. It covers each month and shows the changes that each season brings to the animals of the farm. We are also reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder as a family read-aloud, and have a book club meeting coming up next week so we are working on quilt blocks as a long term project. January is actually a great month for reading both of these books, which begin in January and each span a year.