A day with

We've had a few stressful things thrown our way over the past few weeks, so having any down time is a real treat.

As of January first I have become the big cheese of the library used book sales, and while I know someone had to do the job, and I do have a few good ideas for the event, it is definitely an increase in responsibility and time. It helps immensely to have a little boy who is a) so helpful when we go in to work, and b) so keen on reading all the books he can get his hands on (which is a lot in the sale room) when he can't help. Yesterday my dad helped us shift shelf upon shelf of alphabetized books around the room until we had tweaked organization a bit. Today Calvin spent an hour helping me weed through books that have been around a little too long and need to go on "sale" (as if 1.00 for a hardcover wasn't already "on sale"). Thanks, family.

The cold in our house is still threatening a coup, so the rest of the day we spent with tea and books. Some math, some piano, and Calvin was suddenly bent on getting back into our study of early humans so we revisited our "A Day with..." books by Fiorenzo Facchini (Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthal Man, and Homo sapiens). We both love these books—each is full of facts, dates, and images of archeological finds with a short story interspersed to bring those things to life.

Having mapped the human migration out of Africa we are working our way into American history and I'm loosely tapping an Intellego Unit Study for that. I have the American History Volume I studies for both grades K-2 and 3-5 and I'm blending them a bit, picking and choosing the parts I like from each. I think I've said before that I could probably have done this on my own, but I'm finding that there is something to be said for having a basic guide to follow—less late night planning involved.

Today we told each other our own A day with stories about living as hunter gatherers. Calvin decided that Jon was out hunting with a spear and a torch while we were in charge of gathering water in a gourd and collecting berries and tubers. We were in charge of the fire as well. I think this is reflected well in the illustrations he made to go along.

The men are returning...see their torches?

There will be meat for dinner (it's hanging up there) and a woman with a gourd of water...

Now we are back in current times. Chicken soup for dinner again (we will get healthy, we will), and there is snow in the forecast. Actual, honest-to-goodness snow. I hope it comes.

Confidence

Legos, piano, kitchen counter science, and romping outside in the brilliant fall sunshine are the things that have dominated the last few days here. Today was library book sale day and we came home with two bags of treasure to enjoy. Jon played in his first piano recital in years this afternoon and we all delighted in his talent, and in the family time that inevitably follows such an event. The leaves have just about all fallen by now, and hot tea and evening fire weather is just around the corner.

Our journey through history is now well into the Cenozoic Era, and this week we'll be touring some painted caves in France, and making our way to the land bridge and into the Americas, where our ancestors will meet up with some of the fantastic mammals we've been reading about.

In September I purchased an American history curriculum by Intellego. I was drawn to it for the same reason that I'm drawn to clothing ads in the Sunday paper—I have no confidence in my ability to plan appropriately, be it my clothes for a day, or a journey through the history of our continent.

So I bought the curriculum for the security it could provide. And you know what? It worked, in a Dumbo's feather kind of way. It took until now to get to it because we were delayed in the Paleo and Mesozoic Eras, which was fun, but now we've arrived in the Cenozoic and are at the moment of the Beringia land bridge, which is where Intellego picks up. This weekend I broke out the curriculum only to find that it is mostly a collection of links to other people's free curricula online, with suggestions for activities on the side. So you see, the more I read it, the more confident I am that I could have figured this all out for myself. I was looking for confidence, after all.

Greenfield Village

Yesterday was a birthday in our house. Jon got the day off for his birthday, and we, deciding to make the most of that and the beautiful weather, headed to Greenfield Village. Calvin has been talking about the Village since we visited the Henry Ford Museum last week. Greenfield Village is outside on the grounds behind the museum and is a collection of authentic historical buildings, like Ford's birth home, Edison's laboratory, The Wright Brother's shop and home, and slave quarters from a brick "plantation" in Georgia. The homes and buildings were purchased and actually moved to the park and set up to give visitors a chance to experience life from a time long ago.

Houses and buildings are not from any one time period, but provide a look at many eras throughout the history of the United States. This is another great place to find serious reenactors at work. We walked through the farm field where farm hands were seriously plowing like mad, trying to get the fall crop planted before the first freeze, then inside the house we met the two women who were preparing the midday meal that would be eaten by all farm workers, and a woman out back who was doing the laundry and hanging it out to dry. These people are for real.

Not all of the village employees are reenactors. Reenactors are always in period dress, while "experts" are dressed in a village uniform. Experts are not in character at any given time, but were wonderfully knowledgeable about their respective positions. Some are mainly docents, like the lady in the printing press and the tinsmith, while others are actual tradesmen, like glass blowers and train restorers. We got to see all of them performing their trades.

We took a wagon ride through the village part of the village

We played in the beautiful fall sun.

Calvin loved the round house—an authentic building, but also one of the only buildings on site that went "out of character" with a museum style room. It also allowed us to go down in a pit underneath a fabulous steam engine.

There is so much to see that, like with the museum, we know we'll have to go back. We didn't spend much time on the village street in the shops, but we did take a trip through town in a Model-T.

We enjoyed midday birthday celebration meal at the mid 19th century Eagle Tavern, Calvin J. Wood, proprietor. We met Calvin Wood on our way in—a truly enjoyable reenactor who loved our own Calvin and offered him a job planting corn in the spring at nine cents an hour, twelve hours a day. We sat at community tables, ate traditional dishes prepared with local foods, mostly organic, and sipped drinks through noodle straws. Really delightful.

We took a train ride all around the park, and watched them fill the ancient steam engine with water at one of our station stops. Calvin loved watching the bell ring, and I loved feeling the moisture of the steam, and getting slightly dotted with soot.

The guys rode on a carousel made in New York almost a century ago.

Covered bridges, scarecrows, beautiful fall folliage, beautiful day. We had such a great time.

Pioneer Days

In a tiny township not far away, a well organized group of history lovers gathers every fall to present the surrounding communities with Pioneer Days. The event is put on by seasoned reenactors as well as local volunteers and even a few families who live today in the manner of yesterday.

Fall seems to me like a great time to discover history, and one of the neatest things about an event like this is being surrounded by people who really care about our past and its preservation. The reenactors are there to spend the weekend living in the world of over 100 years ago, and it is fascinating to watch them do it. Sure they're putting on a show, but it's not a start, stop, rewind, replay show like in a museum, it's a whole weekend long show, and if you stop by and see them cooking in the morning that's because they are already starting the meal they will actually eat later that night. Most reenactors are plenty happy to share information about their activities and the world in which they (are pretending to) live, while a few would rather be left alone to the living itself, teaching onlookers merely by doing.

These local, historical society organized events can be a great place to really touch, smell, hear, and believe history.

From watching the shearing of sheep, to the carding of the wool, to the spinning, and then to the booth where you can by the yarn.

Churn the butter, and taste some that was finished earlier while you're at it, then go inside and see how that butter is being used to start dinner.

Help shred cabbage for the making of sauerkraut...

help collect, clean, and press apples, then taste the cider...

Then go for a hay ride—and not just any hay ride, but a ride through the still active farm fields that belonged to the family that lived in the house you've been visiting. This is the ride the workers would have made to look over the crops, and to bring stores from the barn.

Then go around the corner to the one room school house that the children from the farm would have attended.

That's living history.

Visiting history—Henry Ford Museum

My camera has two—TWO—sd card slots, but do you think either one had a memory card in it when we went to the museum today? No.

The Henry Ford Museum. At just about forty minutes from us, it's going to be a great hands-on, real-as-life tool for our U.S. history exploration. Build a mini car on a mini assembly line, build a real honest-to-goodness Model-T; design, create, and test fly your own paper air planes; climb into the cabin of a plane, the engine of a Steam train, the driver's seat of a car, even the very bus from which Rosa Parks made history; and peruse hundreds of artifacts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries in the U.S., like the Wienermobile! I see regular field trips in our future.

And thank goodness for camera phones.

In his words: