South Dakota State Study - Laura Ingalls Wilder and Flower Napkins

We are finishing up our studies of South Dakota with an introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder.  At the age of twelve, Laura Ingalls and her family moved to DeSmet, South Dakota.  You can actually visit their homestead.  The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society preserves a collection of over 2000 original artifacts and three historic structures where the Ingalls family lived and studied.  The Surveyors' House was the Ingalls' family's first home in "By the Shores of Silver Lake", The First School of De Smet was attended by Laura and her sister Carrie in "Little Town on the Prairie", and the Ingalls Home was built by Pa shortly after Laura was married.  Tours off all of these buildings are available year round and begin at the gift shop located 1 block east of the court house.

To introduce C and R to Wilder's books, we began with a few of the books from the My First Little House series.  I wanted to see if they had any interest in these before we began the longer, original chapter books.  Well, they both really enjoyed them and now we are working our way through the first Little House book.

I couldn't resist the My Little House Crafts Book by Carolyn Storm Collins and Christina Wyss Eriksson.  There are eighteen different pioneer crafts in this book, including Ma's Button Lamp, Mary's Beaded Bracelet, Laura's Corncob Doll, and more.  Before the directions for each craft, there is a quote from the book that mentioned the craft.  The craft we chose was mentioned in the book, Little Town on the Prairie, when napkins were folded like flowers for a birthday party that Laura attended.  In the craft book, there is a little background about the napkin flowers followed by directions to make them.  C, R, and I had no problem following the directions to make our own napkin flowers.

I recommend the book for Little House fans, or for anyone looking for frontier crafts.  I would like to try more of the crafts as we read the books mentioned.  I also think we will be making these "Little Town Party Napkins" again!

Stay tuned for a post about My First Little House Books My Little House Cookbook in my Cookbooks for Kids Series.

Also, if you have older children, you may be interested in The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker.  This cookbook features frontier foods from Wilder's classic stories; it looks wonderful, but the recipes and the text are a bit advanced for my little ones.

I am so excited to share Little House with my children; I have such fond memories of the books and the television show.

   

More Dinosaur Fun and Cookies!

We are still having a blast learning about dinosaurs.  This is what I love about our Fifty States Project - we had no plan to study dinosaurs, other than reading about the T. Rex skeleton (Sue) that was found in South Dakota, but once we read about Sue we wanted to learn more.

I could not resist making the baby Brontosaurus cookies from Almost Unschoolers.  She is far more talented than I am when it comes to hand crafting cookies; the legs on mine are a bit weird, but I got the cookies to stand up and that made my day.  I also used the Almost Unschoolers sugar cookie recipe and I am thrilled with it.  The dough was easy (super easy) to work with and the cookies taste great!   I made the dough last night, but didn't make the cookies until this morning (I refrigerated the dough, of course) and everything went well.  I can't wait for C to come home from school and see this cookie.  I made one for C and one for R, and I used the rest of the dough to make dinosaur cookies with a cookie cutter.  I am really happy with the results! 

Last week, we watched a Reading Rainbow (I LOVE Reading Rainbow!) DVD featuring the book Digging Up Dinosaurs by Aliki.  In this video, LeVar Burton buries a time capsule and relates the activity to what we find when we look at dinosaurs from the past.  He also visits the Dinosaur National Monument where dinosaur fossils are dug.  The book that is featured in the video explains how scientists uncover, preserve, and study fossils.

C and R enjoyed eating Perdue dinosaur chicken nuggets while watching the video!  They thought this was just wonderful! 

After the video, we read Dinosaur Bones by Aliki.  This book is from the Let's Read and Find Out Science series and it explains how we learn about dinosaurs from their bones.

We also read The Magic School Bus In the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole.  R is not really interested in The Magic School Bus books yet, but C really likes them.  In this one, Ms. Frizzle takes the class back in time to the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods where they are able to observe dinosaurs, plant life, and more.

I borrowed Eyewitness Books Dinosaur by David Norman and Angela Milner from the library, and I have left this book out for C to look through whenever he wants.  R has not had any interest in this one.

In addition to the books and video, C has really enjoyed playing Digging for Dinosaurs on his Leapster.  This game was a gift for Valentine's Day and lately he has really become interested in it.  The games feature dinosaur facts, digging for fossils to see how each dinosaur was unique, and building dinosaur skeletons.  (By the way, C and R both have Leapsters and really enjoy them.  I worried that they would grow tired of them quickly, but that has not been the case in our house.)

Finally, I set up a 100 piece glow in the dark dinosaur puzzle for us to work on together.  There is nothing scientifically accurate about this puzzle, but I thought it would be fun.

I have to mention that R bought this puzzle for her brother with money she had left from a gift card she received for her birthday; I thought that was very sweet of her!

C will be participating in a week long dinosaur camp (run by the Audubon Society) this summer where he will learn about dinosaurs, participate in archeological digs, and learn about fossils.  We also have plans to visit the Boston Museum of Science to see their current dinosaur exhibit! 

All of this learning and fun began with our South Dakota state study! 
 

Mount Rushmore Part Two

C's first grade class was learning about national monuments last week.  Each child chose a monument to write about and C chose Mount Rushmore because he was learning about it at home (can you see me grinning through the screen?). 

This is what he wrote:

He also drew a picture of Mount Rushmore:

I love this!

Crazy Horse - South Dakota State Study

We are currently studying the state of South Dakota.  Crazy Horse was born in the Black Hills in the area close to the border that divides Wyoming and South Dakota.  He was born in 1841 or 1842 and was given the name Curly at birth because of his curly hair.  He was always a leader and is among the best-known Native American heroes.  Today, there is a Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota that is still a work in progress.

After looking at pictures of the memorial, we read Crazy Horse's Vision by Joseph Bruchac.  This book recounts the story of Curly's childhood, the trouble the Lakota Indians (also known as Sioux Indians) faced from the white settlers, and Curly's attempt to seek a vision to guide him to help his people; all of these moments lead to his transformation into the brave warrior known as Crazy Horse.  There is a very informative author's note at the end of the book that fills in the details and explains how Crazy Horse died.

We really liked the Illustrator's Note at the end of the book.  S.D. Nelson is a Sioux artist who explains the symbols, use of colors, and the painting style of the Plains Indians.  The illustrator (I'm not sure if S.D. is a man or woman) mentions the intention to draw in young readers through the pictures; this worked for us - C and R were both very interested in the paintings.  They were also very interested in the fact that Crazy Horse did not appear to be wearing clothing - sigh.

We learned that colors have special meanings for the Lakota people.  Red represents the east where each day begins with the rising sun.  Yellow represents the south, summer, and where things grow.  Crazy Horse was painted blue in this book (C and R kept saying he was from the movie Avatar) because blue represents the sky and a connection with the spirit world.  The paintings throughout the book are primarily red, yellow, and blue.

I gave C and R white paper and red, yellow, and blue paint to create their own art after reading this book.  C tried to paint what the colors represent:

R painted what she felt like painting:

I love that C and R always approach learning experiences and art so differently.  I learn so much from them just by the way they approach things.

We really enjoyed the  book.  I liked that it captured and held the attention of C and R, and also taught them some interesting history of South Dakota and the Native American people.

Mount Rushmore Craft

We are currently studying the state of South Dakota.  I searched high and low for a Mount Rushmore craft and I did find one, but I didn't care for it because it involves making crayon rubbings of coins in the shape of a mountain.  This would be a really neat idea if Theodore Roosevelt was the president on the dime, but Franklin Roosevelt is on the dime and I just can't get past that problem.  I don't see the point in doing the craft if it isn't accurate in this respect.

So, I printed coloring pages of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore from the Crayola website.  If you are looking for unique educational coloring pages, that is the place to find them.  They have all of the presidents and many more great pages for educational purposes.

The coloring pages have information about the presidents at the bottom of the page.  This is great because it gave us an opportunity to learn a little about the presidents while creating our own models of Mount Rushmore.

After C and R colored the presidents, we cut them out and glued them in the correct order on brown paper grocery bags we had cut open.  The presidents are not proportionate, but the goal was really to find the correct presidents and learn a little about them and Mount Rushmore, so I wasn't concerned about the proportions.

C and R also colored in some of the mountain and some trees.  Finally, they glued the information about each president on the opposite side of the bag.

R has a colorful Mount Rushmore!

C stuck with stone colors - he's the traditionalist.

We read a book from the Level 1 Read To Read Wonders of America series titled Mount Rushmore by Marion Dane Bauer.  This book is great for young children.  We learned some interesting things about Mount Rushmore, but I think the favorite fact from the book is that Washington's nose is twenty feet long.

Future Paleontologist

We are having a lot of fun with our dinosaur theme for our South Dakota state study.  So far, we have made dinosaur teeth and dinosaur fossils.  We also used a Smithsonian kit to excavate a T- Rex skeleton.  The kit came with a sand brick that had a T-Rex skeleton replica in it for excavating with a mallet and dowel.  The kit also came with goggles, but according to the directions, the goggles were for play, not for protection (?????).  My kids still insisted on wearing the goggles.

R worked on the kit for about fifteen minutes and left the rest for C to finish.  I think R was a little frustrated that she didn't find any of the bones, but even after C started to find them, R never had any interest in going back to the excavating.  C, on the other hand, worked on this for hours!  He has since decided that he wants to be a paleontologist. 

After the excavation was complete, C assembled the plastic dinosaur.  I have to admit that I expected better quality.  The dinosaur doesn't really stay together and it barely stands up.  C was pretty happy with it though.  As a matter of fact, he said that this kit is one of his favorite activities of all time; he really enjoyed the process.

We followed this with the book The Field Mouse and the Dinosaur Named Sue by Jan Wahl.

A tiny field mouse lives in a burrow beneath an old bone in South Dakota until his life is turned upside down by fossil hunters.  The mouse ends up in a box that is taken to the Field Museum in Chicago where he finds the dinosaur named Sue.  We all enjoyed the book.

Thank you to Almost Unschoolers for recommending this book, and hop over to Adventures in Mommydom for Science Sunday!
 

Salt Dough Dinosaur Fossils - South Dakota

Earlier in the week, I saw salt dough creations at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns and it reminded me that salt dough has been on my to do list for a long time.  Then, I happened to see salt dough dinosaur fossils at Miller Moments and knew we had to make some of our own since South Dakota has been a hot spot for dinosaur fossils and we are currently studying South Dakota.

This is the recipe we used (from Miller Moments):

1 cup of salt
2 cups of flour
1 cup of warm water

Mix thoroughly until dough consistency. Roll out and create dinosaur footprints by stomping toy dinosaurs in the dough!

To dry, place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees until dry. Or just leave out for several days until dry.

While C and R worked on making their fossils, we listened to various artists singing original songs about the T. rex named Sue on a CD we borrowed from the library.

Overall, the CD was pretty good in that it told the whole story of how Sue was found and how she eventually made it to the Field Museum in Chicago.  I don't really care for most of the music, but the lyrics are very educational.  My favorite song from the collection is How Do You Get to South Dakota?  C and R like all of the songs.

Dinosaur Teeth Snack

I made C and R some dinosaur teeth to snack on while we read A T. Rex Named Sue by Natalie Lunis.  We read this book because the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as Sue, was found in South Dakota (our current state of study).  Did you know that while dinosaurs lived in every part of the world, T. rex bones have only been found in western North America? 

C and R really enjoyed this book; it kept their interest the entire time.  I really like the way the book is written.

We learned that T. rex's sharp, curved teeth were the size of bananas and that makes our dinosaur teeth snack just perfect!

To make the snack, I sliced bananas in half.  C and R each got two dinosaur teeth (one whole banana).

Then we spread each slice with peanut butter and sprinkled on graham cracker crumbs.  The nice thing about this HEALTHY snack is that the kids can help make it!  By the way, adults will enjoy this yummy treat too!

Don't you think our dinosaur teeth look like Sue's teeth?  C and R have requested this snack several times since we first made it, and they think it's really funny that there is a dinosaur that has the same name as their Grandma!

This isn't a science experiment, but this book has a lot of great scientific information in it, so I am linking this post to Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.