Farmer Boy

As a child, I had an obsession with the Little House books. I read them repeatedly and dreamed of petticoats and covered wagons. We played Little House all the time. When I did my chores, I pretended to be Laura Ingalls. It made the chores much more fun.
When my daughter was younger, we read the Little House books together. I even made her a prairie dress, bonnet, and pinafore. It was over the top cute.
I have a long time love affair with the books. (Though I must admit, my obsession is only with the originals. I have tried, but can't get into the series books that were written later. I am a sucker for the originals only.)
So, it is with great pleasure that I picked up Farmer Boy to be the next read aloud for my son. This is another book that gets high ratings from me to be read during the nine year change. Almanzo begins the book as an eight year old and turns nine right away.  His adventures and struggles are perfect for the third grade Waldorf child and they fit so well into a main lesson about farming.
The detailed descriptions of life in this time are charming and addictive. You find yourself wanting to eat pancakes and make things by hand!
This book is chock full of opportunities to blend in handiwork with literature. From making a tin can lantern to braiding a whip - from making homemade candy to growing a pumpkin - there is no shortage of activities to tie in to the story.
As I write this, we have tin cans in the freezer. We are going to use a hammer and nail to punch designs in the side. You simply wash out a can and fill it with water. Take the label off. Put it in the freezer till it is frozen through. In the meantime, use the can label to cut yourself a piece of paper that will fit around the can. Draw a simple design on the paper. When the water is frozen, tape the paper around the can and use a hammer and nail to poke holes in the can following your design. The ice should keep the can from becoming misshapen. Also poke two holes near the top so you can add wire to make a handle for your lantern. Allow the ice to melt and you have a lovely punched tin can lantern. Add a tea light candle and enjoy!
Farmer Boy is full of opportunity for history, crafts, and life lessons.
I have been delighted to discover that the Little House books can be just as much for boys as for girls. Give it a try!

Medieval Feast at The Woodland School Cooperative

Our monthly homeschool cooperative met for a medieval feast. This was probably the high point of the fall semester. We ate chicken legs like barbarians, jousted with pool noodles, and generally had an amazing time. Here is a group shot of some of the merry-makers. I can't say enough about this fabulous group of friends.

Antique Bowls and Baby Birds

There is an antique store near our home. It is a junky looking place surrounded by a fence and situated on the corner of a busy intersection. We pass it almost daily. There is a large fountain out by the road that sports a classical statue of a scantily clad Roman girl. My children think it is quite funny. There is an assortment of old bathtubs, yard gnomes playing cards, rusty chairs, and many more eccentricities. We generally have to sit at the light for a few minutes and the view is really better than an "I Spy" book.

The other day a new addition had arrived... and by new, I mean, well, quite old....

An antique carriage was sitting there, just inside the gate. Exclamations of approval and fascination came from the back seat. My son, with his little face pressed against the glass begged, "Can we go?"

The antique store had really just been part of the scenery - something to ponder while sitting in traffic, but now, with this question, it had the potential to be a destination. Since we were on the way somewhere and pushed for time, a visit wasn't possible, but... the idea had taken hold.

The next few days were marked by the persistence of my son and his drive to see the carriage first hand. He was also intrigued by the two large brick buildings on site. If the outside held such wonders, what would the inside hold?

We finally made a family trip to the antique store. The children both enjoyed the array of oddities in the yard. A closer inspection than the car had afforded yielded a vast wonderland of strange and wonderful objects. It was a living history lesson. The buildings were full of treasures from yesteryear, a typewriter that fascinated my daughter, a statue of a stag, very old toys like the circus train from the early 1900's, (we had seen one very similar at a toy exhibit at a museum in Virginia), and much, much more. As we picked our way through the precariously piled history, we reached the back of the warehouse.

A strange sound met our ears, and for a moment, I feared we were about to meet a creature of the rodent variety, but upon venturing forth, we discovered the most cunning little family of baby birds. They were so tiny, perfect, and adorable - really, really adorable. They were hopping about and practicing flying. They couldn't get off the ground much, but were using the antique china serving bowls as little jumping off points. They would jump and flutter their wings out and come to rest nearby, only to try and hop back up for another go. The children, and I must say, my husband and myself, were enchanted.

They were so close to us, we could have touched them, though we refrained (barely!). And then, to up the cute factor even more, the Mother arrived in the window high up on the back wall. She was carrying a little wormy thing in her mouth. She made a big show of flapping about and scolding, so we backed off around the corner of an old hutch and she approached one of her offspring that was perched on an antique fire fighter's helmet. The little bird took the worm from her in a lightning fast bite and then she was off again.

Here we were enjoying a nature and history adventure... all because we kept our eyes open to the world around us... or at least my children did. I probably would have just kept driving by that place... forever.