Week 1

This week was very exciting for us in many ways! We started our 4th year of home schooling, which I must say will probably be my favorite one of all! We were able to meet Karen Grassle on Saturday! She was the woman who played Ma on the series "Little House on the Prairie". We went to the Genesee Country Museum near our home for Laura Ingalls Wilder Day. We had such a wonderful week I'm not sure how to top it!

Tuesday we made home made butter, Wednesday we made our home blessing schedule. We took exactly what was in the book and set it as our schedule. Of course we have changed it some to match today.

Wash on Monday

Iron on Tuesday

Mend on Wednesday

Churn on Thursday

Clean on Friday

Bake on Saturday

REST on Sunday

Thursday we learned about 1800's family Christmas gatherings. The children were just amazed at how excited Laura and Mary were to just get 2 gifts for Christmas. We talked about how materialistic modern children can be with the I wants! I gave the children a number of things to think about with the upcoming holidays. First I asked them to think of the real reason for Christmas. Not only that Jesus was born but that he came to save us! What a gift he has given us. Second was that there are still many children in the world and this country that do not get any gifts for Christmas. They all agreed that they wanted to give up a gift and send to someone in need. So this year we will be taking an angel off the tree in town and buying for another child. I was very touched by their excitement!!

This leads me to Saturday!! Below I will share many pictures of our travel back to the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder. ENJOY!!

Katrina washing clothes. She has decided she wants us to get rid of our washer and dryer and do laundry this way from now on. That would last about a day! LOL!

Andrew wasn't so sure about doing the laundry. It took some convincing to get him in there to try it. Doesn't he look thrilled??

Hannah was so excited about learning how they did things in Laura's day. She loves Little House. The bonnet she has on is something she has had for a while. She wears it everywhere, even Church!

This is Karen Grassle, who played "Ma" on the series Little House on the Prairie. She is a very soft spoken woman. She is kind and down to earth. Although, she admits to being a feminist, I really enjoyed listening to her speak. She talked for about 20 minutes about how she was cast into the roll of Ma. She was asked to come in for an interview with Michael Landon to read for him. After she did he was very excited to give her the roll right on the spot. Then she opened up the floor and took questions from people. Some questions she graciously refused to answer, but I do not blame her because I couldn't believe someone would ask her, "Who did you not like on the set of Little House?" She also said she was nothing like Ma, but she does have the grace of her! This woman is a direct descendant of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her Great Grandfather was Charles Ingalls. She just happened by the museum on a bus tour the day before and one of her family members brought her back for the day. Wonderful lady. Next it was onto making ice cream. The children were able to turn the crank and see how the ice cream was formed. Then we were able to sample it. But because of NYS laws we had to sample some made in the museum kitchen by "professionals". It still tasted very good!!

We then moved on to the baseball field. Where we enjoyed a 19th century baseball game. It was great because Friday nite we went to a modern baseball game with our church. Andrew loved watching it and seeing how different it was from today's baseball. One thing he noticed was that they didn't use gloves in the 19th century because the ball was much softer. They also pitched underhand, like in softball of today.

There are SO many more pictures, but I need to get some work done. So I promise I'll post them later! If you are ever in the Rochester, NY area please do not miss this museum!