Our Fourth Week of School

We began our next unit study this week.
We are now studying about Resourcefulness: Frontier Life. Coco is very excited because she loves Little House on the Prairie. On Monday we started reading our first Little House book, Little House in the Big Woods and we discussed what it meant to be resourceful, i.e. the differences between natural and unnatural resources. Pioneers had to be courageous and resourceful to prepare and to travel on their long journeys. We learned that these journeys would take five to six months. Timing was critical to avoid snow, muddy landscapes and a lack of grass for their cattle to feed upon. I had the kids list the things that were necessary to pack on their wagon for the journey. They thought of everything from today's standards. I had to back up and explain that they were travelers from the 1800's. What would they need to bring and who would they want in their wagon train group. They caught on.


We did a lot of building projects this week. The first one was to have the kids construct a covered wagon. I didn't purchase a pre-made kit. I wanted the kids to make one from things we already had on hand. The only thing that I needed to purchase was the spray paint and the bottom box for the bottom wagon part. I picked up some truffle type boxes sold at a party store. They cost just $0.55 each. They cut off the top portion. Then I had them glue on wooden sticks. After the sticks dried I sprayed it brown for them. For the tent hoops we used pipe cleaners. The kids taped them in place. Here is a closeup view.
Once the pipe cleaners were in place we glued a piece of muslin on top. After it dried I had the kids stitched it closed.

On Thursday, our co-op day, we made two different types of pioneer homes. A log cabin and a sod house. We talked about living in each and if they lived in a place that had trees vs. not having trees. To make the sod houses it was a very messy undertaking. Coco loved to get messy with the cotton balls and glue. Baba even did a great job making one. I found the idea on the Internet. It said to use Popsicle sticks and clay to build a simple frame structure, which we did on Monday, leaving it to dry. After the frame was dry and set. I had the kids dip cotton balls into glue and make a wall on each side. It said to make a flour and water paste. I was short on flour so we just used glue. For the roof the kids just glued tongue depressor sticks together. I still need to spray their houses brown. Here are a few pictures of them:

Here are some pictures of the log homes that the kids made. We just made them out of brown construction paper tubes cut to size. Baba was very good at rolling the construction paper tubes and I taped them in place.

On Wednesday, the kids started up again in AWANA. Here are some pictures of them in their uniforms with their books. They were very excited. Chip is now in his second year in T & T, Coco is in her last year of Sparks and Baba in his last year of Cubbies.

As if our week wasn't busy enough...........on Friday afternoon we went to the local fair to find all the things we have been learning about this week. We found so many things there that we are going back next Thursday. Here is a cute picture of the kids.

Here is a list of the books that we are currently reading:

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Clara Barton by Matthew Grant

Trouble River by Betsy Byars (Chip)

Meet Kirsten by Janet Shaw (Coco)

If you Traveled West in a Covered Wagon by Ellen Levine.