Wednesday, February 27, 2013

It started with a book

A book randomly selected from the library called "Papa and the Pioneer Quilt". Etta LOVED it. So then we got a few more books from the library about quilts. One talks about a memorial quilt made to honor the lives lost in a tsunami in Hawaii (true event, fictionalized story). One talks about a school teacher and the pipes at her school freezing and bursting and them making a quilt as a fundraiser. One talks about a special quilt with all the family members names on it but it gets sucked up by a tornado. Another talks about a grandma who moves into a retirement home and hates it so they make her a quilt out of clothes, curtains etc she has saved and it reminds her of home. Lots of natural disasters or sad events. But lovingly handmade quilts.

Etta really wants a "scrap bag" so she can collect pieces to make her own quilt. I had already been setting aside favorite baby clothes to possibly have a quilt made out of. So maybe those baby clothes can become a homemade quilt and she can be a part of that project. But I dont see that happening within the next few months.

Meanwhile we made our puzzle of the Unites States and talked about what states the wagon trains went through. Now I placed a hold on more books about the Oregon Trail (hoping to avoid ones that mention scalping and cannibalism!)

I sure love the public library. And I can see the appeal of homeschooling: you find something they are interested in, you read lots of books about it, you tie science projects or "home - ec" projects into the theme and you enjoy the learning! Not saying I am going to choose homeschooling for Addie for kindergarten. Just saying it can be fun to focus on a theme.

Before the quilt theme started we were on the Bear Snores On theme. We had every single book with the bear character. We read them all countless times (if I did not have other things to do, I think Etta would be content spending about 4 hours or more a day being read to!). One of them talks about a new friend, so we got to look back at the other bear books & see which books had the friend. We used that as one way to try to organize the books by which came out first.

Who knows what will come next!

1 comment:

  1. Addie might be a little young for the Little House books, but even if she is, there is a Little House cookbook that might tie in to your pioneer theme. You can make maple candy :) I just read through a huge pioneer/Oregon trail homeschool unit online yesterday, but it was for older kids.

    ReplyDelete