Bison Paintings

 Banana Boy

 Pepper

 Sunshine

We got this fun idea from this blog.  I thought they were so cute, and the kids are always begging to do art. 

I did some sample bison and then the kids did theirs.  When they went to put their paintings together, I shared some of my bison with them.  BB's two front bison are his own.  BB decided to add a bison skull and a rock to his, as well.  He was initially very frustrated at his bison drawings, but once we got to the painting and gluing part, he took off.  I love how he cut one in half to make it walking into the scene.

Pepper's bison are all her own.  She hates drawing animals, but I think her little bison turned out really well.  Better than my childish stick calves!  Her lying-down bison is also really well done.

Sunshine's two HUGE bison are his own.  I like his sun and how he remembered to tuck the feet of the back bison behind the head of the front one.

Plains Indians Schedule

The Buffalo Painting can be found here

And the Buffalo Parts activity can be found here.

Peanut Butter Pemmican

More palatable to kids than the suet kind...

"Peanut butter" pemmican

1 part jerky
1 part peanuts or pecans, unroasted
1 part raisins
1 part any seedless dried fruit(s) not preserved with sulfites—apples, peaches, blueberries, etc.
Peanut butter and honey, in a two-to-one ratio
Cayenne pepper, to taste (optional, but contrasts nicely with the sweet fruits and honey.)

Powder the jerky in a blender. Add fruit and nuts. Microwave honey and peanut butter to soften them, then blend them into the mixture. (Use less than you think you'll need, just enough to bind everything together. If you get it wrong, it's easier to add more peanut butter and honey than to add more of everything else.) Add cayenne pepper, working it in thoroughly. Store in plastic bags

Another New School Year, Another Attempt to Document our Homeschool

on a regular basis...

I found myself looking back to the year that I blogged here regularly to remind myself what resources I'd used when we studied American history before.  It made me wish I'd kept up recording our homeschool here.  So here goes another attempt.

For 2013, the four youngers are home.  Sunshine is in 3rd grade (although about 2nd academically), Banana Boy is in 5th, Pepper 7th and Daisy 10th.  Rose Bud will be a senior in public school and applied to her first college yesterday.  :( :)

We are once again beginning American History by studying four regional types of American Indians.

For the forest Indians of the Northeast, our schedule looks like this:

Resources we are using include
Legend Chart

Dreamcatcher

Longhouse Model-- from the Scholastic book Easy Make & Learn Projects: Northeast Indians.  I got a free sample download from this book once, which was the longhouse project.  I can't find the link to it now.

Region Map--two cute ideas  and 


 

Pepper is making a Powerpoint comparing the 4 regions and is reading all the literature.  Banana Boy is reading most of the literature.  Sunshine is listening in and reading some easy readers aloud to me.  His first one is Little Runner of the Longhouse.

A field trip

Yesterday, we took a field trip to the Milwaukee Public Museum to wrap up our study of the American Indians.  MPM has a great Native American exhibit and it's so much more interesting to view it when you know what you are looking at!  I've been there about 40 times (it was a yearly trek with my Grandma when we spent a summer's week with her) and I've seen the exhibits all those times.  But to look at them with my kids, through their eyes was so much fun!

I never noticed the cool totem poles they have, nor how the Northwest exhibit is housed in a cedar plankhouse.  They even have some actual cedar planks from the Northwest, over a hundred years old.  They have mini dioramas of life scenes of many different tribes.  Daisy is particularly fascinated by these.  Often, they will have actual artifacts displayed nearby as depicted in the diorama.  The girls loved to read the desriptions of the items and shout, "Mom!  look at this!  We read this in...." 

 

There is even a real Haida canoe hanging from the ceiling in the lobby!  How cool is that!  In all the times we were there, we never saw it!

 

We examined the inside of a Pueblo, saw an impressive Kachina collection, found Blackfeet artifacts, looked inside a teepee and saw a recreated, life-size Iroquois encampment.

 

The very best part, for every child who visits the museum, however is the Buffalo Hunt!  It is a life-size diorama with 5 or 6 real bison, 2 real horses with Indians on horseback, in a hunt.    There is something awesome about seeing real bison up close and personal, even if they are dusty.  There is a small swatch of buffalo hide to pet and feel.  Then there is a small diorama of a chase-the-buffalo-over-the-cliff hunt which always fascinates the kids.  They love to look at death and destruction.

 

It was a very fun day.  Sunshine stayed with my mom, so it was relaxing, too.  It was good to have some time with just the three middles.

Northwest Indians

In the Northwest, we studied two completely different tribes.  The Tlingit are actually considered Northwest Coast Indians and lived in plank houses with totem poles.  The Nez Perce were actually Plateau Indians, living much further from the coast and a much different lifestyle similar to the Plains Indians.

 

We studied the Nez Perce because we had access to such great resources about Kaya, one of the American Girl history dolls.  In addition to her storybooks, there is also Kaya's World, which tells many more details about the Nez Perce life, the toys (we have the Kaya doll), and other resources.  The girls loved the Kaya stories, about half of which I read aloud and the other have which they read themselves.  It was Pepper's first time reading an American Girl book and she found she liked it!  She read the entire book 2 in one evening!

 

I'm just going to give you some pictures of our projects, rather than of the folders this time.  If you want to see the folders, you'll have to come visit us!

Daisy's Totem Pole

 

 

 

Pepper's Totem Pole and the Dover Northwest Indians Punch-Out House the girls built

 

The plank house and totem poles (LOVE Dover books!)

Daisy's cradleboard (holding Mimi, pretending to be Native American)

Pepper's Cradleboard (holding Katie)

Sunshine's Cradleboard holding a toilet paper tube Indian the girls made for him

 

So now we are done with the Indians, at least as our main focus of study.  We will, of course, revisit them throughout our adventure through American History.

 

On to Leif the Lucky and the Vikings!

 

 

More Lapbook photos

Here are Daisy and Pepper's Native Lapbooks.  You already saw two of Daisy's.  She is making an individual folder for each Indian group we study.  Pepper is doing 4 in 1 and you'll see her first three.  Next week we will complete the final group and make a folder for the Northwest Coast Indians.

 

Daisy's is first and is orange.  Pepper's is second and is green and then blue.  I tried to make the slides longer this time so you can see what's in the folder better.

 

A note about Pepper's folder.  She made flap books comparing the cultures.  Each book has a section for Houses, Transportation, Food, Clothing, Toys.  We only show you one page from each.  You'll see the food page for the Woodlands and the Transportation page for the Plains.  To see the other pages, you'll have to come and visit us!

 

Native Lapbooks  (click the link)

 

 

A Trip to visit the Southwest Indians

We're getting a little tired of studying the Native Americans.  Only one more group left after this.  We found it hard to find things to read about the Southwest Indians, but there were lots of crafts to do.  We made pots and kachina dolls and the girls each wove a blanket for their dolls.  We also made a button buzzer toy.  Our best reading was from Holling C. Holling's Book of Indians.  The story about Little Turtle was very exciting!

 

 

Kachina Dolls--Daisy's on the left, Pepper's on the right

Daisy's Coil Pot

Pepper's "Navajo" Blanket (Daisy helped with some of the weaving, then made her own)

Why I chose a literature-based, no-craft curriculum

For years we have used Sonlight Curriculum and loved it. And I still call myself a Sonlighter. But we have deviated so far from the SL Instructor's Guide (to the point we aren't even using it) that I feel a little fraudulent.

SL chooses all the best books for you, sells them to you in a complete, reasonably-priced package and provides math, language arts, science and some other extras should you choose to use them. Their booklists are top-notch and Rose Bud and I have enjoyed almost all of those we've read.

But this year (and to some extent last year, too) I have felt the need to reinvent the wheel. Maybe it's because the girls are a bit young for SL's Core 3 (American History, Part 1). Maybe it's because they are such different animals than Rose Bud.

Rose Bud THRIVED on SL's heavy schedule of reading and read-alouds (the books I read to her). Whenever I had the brilliant idea to toss in some hands-on craft or learning experiences, she balked and fussed and it was generally a poor experience for both of us.

Daisy and Pepper also love the reading, but they NEED hands-on like they need air to breathe. So this year I have put together my own American History curriculum based on their desires (Native Americans), a website with some great "younger" resources, and my library and a slew of craft books and kits.

So now my formerly pretty-messy house is most days taken over by crafts. We no longer eat at our dining room table because it is always covered in school.

Anyway, to relate back to today's blog title, here is why I initially chose a literature-based, no-craft curriculum:

Southwest Indian Clay Mess

I had the red Mexican air-drying pottery clay on hand (remnant of an expensive and little-used art curriculum I once had to have) only it was mostly hardened. So into a bucket of warm water it went and I stroked and caressed it back into softness. Or rather gloop. Because once I got enough clay off the block and retrieved it from the bottom of the bucket, it was a slithery mess. So I kneaded it (while the girls did math) and I squished it (while they did geography) and I scraped it off my counter and off my hands (while they ran off to play). Every half hour I poked it to see if it was dry enough to roll into snakes and then scraped it off my hands again.

Eventually, it was dry enough and the girls rolled out their snakes and made their pots, which are beautiful.

And then Daisy had a half-hour crying jag because I said her pot might fall apart if she didn't smooth the coils together, but she thought it was just right the way it was and hadn't I said it was beautiful, but yes, I also said it might fall apart and she didn't want it any more if it was going to fall apart but no-way was she making another one because she was tired of clay and I hurt her feelings by stating a simple fact. sigh.

On a positive note, all that clay has removed any dead skin that ever existed on my hands. Sort of like a free spa treatment, only with Sunshine dipping his fingers into the slurry and smearing red clay everywhere and the girls asking every 30 seconds if it was ready and Banana Boy demanding to "make one too!" So just like a spa only not relaxing. At all.

And this is why I chose Sonlight in the first place.

American Indian Lapbooks

Here are Daisy's completed lapbooks--the first two.  If you click on the link below, it will take you to a slide show of the insides.  You might have to watch it twice to catch it.  I can't slow down the slideshow on Photobucket and I'm too tired to redo it somewhere else.

 

I'll post pictures of Peppers when she is finished.  She's still working on hers.

 

American Indian Lapbooks  click the link to watch the slideshow (I hope)