Pioneering Unit: Settleing the West

Have you ever made butter? How about try your hand at maple sugaring? Or even spun your own wool? I've never done most of those things my self, minus the making butter. Would I like to do the rest? Hmmmmmm.......I'd like to give it a try.

This was unit on the Pioneers was probably one of the best we've done.  Or at least I think so.  I didn't make any added notebook pages or lapbooks like that.  Mostly it was due to the fact I was so busy and other technical reasons (aka computer trouble). But here are the things that we used and I did manage to add in.

  
Books We Used & Read:

We have been watching a mini-series called, "Into the West".  This mini-series has 6 parts and went along great with our studies. We watched the first episodes.  (These 3 go well what we covered so far in our study of pioneers and the settling of the west.)

In to the West fallows the lives of two families The Wheelers (a white family from Virgina) and an Lakota Tribe.  The show is told from both sides as it slowly unfolds.  Starting with Lakota people and there relationship with the buffalo.  Then it goes into the Adventures of the early Mountain Man, Jedediah Smith.  Continuing on until finally concluding at the aftermath of the Battle of Wounded Knee.

I recommend watching these 3 first.  (We are saving the rest for when we cover railroads and the Indian Wars next year. One the second half of American History.)

• Episode 1 - Wheel to the Stars 
• Episode 2 - Manifest Destiny 
• Episode 3 - Dreams and Schemes

Here is a preview from the first episode.


We also watched The History Channels: The Story of US episode "Westward".  There are 9 parts that make up this video if you watch it on Youtube.  Here are the first 2 parts.  (You can get it from Netflix as a disk too.)

Part 1 





Part 2

We also watched a few episodes of Little House on the Prairie. I can post the video cause it Youtube won't let me, But there is a link to the first part of the first episode. Click Here!

I even made a some of the activities from the Little House Craft book myself that I'm going to give away as gifts.  I'm not posting them just in case those who I'm going to give them to are reading this.

Needs a Bit of Butter

This last week we learned about the different thing that the pioneers made with the milk from their cows.  We even gotten a chance to make some.  One thing we made was butter.  It was quite fun and didn't take as long as I thought it would.

My husband like how it came out and suggested that we make our own butter from now on.  Its not a bad idea and to tell you the truth it would last a long while.  We don't use butter to much in out house unless I'm baking cookies.  Wonder Girl has a milk allergy. (She not lactose intolerant.  She allergic to milk and all the proteins that make it up.) So if I made a larger batch of butter it will be in my refrigerator for a while.

The longest and hardest part about making butter was the shaking of the jar.  It ended up take almost an hour to do.  But everyone helped out in doing that. 

Pouring int the whipping cream.

Dare-Devil Boy shaking the cream

Wonder Girl taking her turn shaking the jar.

(The picture is a bit blurry.  She wouldn't stand still enough.)

My husband doing his part in making butter.

Me helping in making the butter.

Even Hondo helped out.  

But really he ended up rolling the jar around the kitchen floor.

Finally after everyone helping and watching an episode of Busy Town Mysteries it was done.I poured out the buttermilk from the bowl and my husband ended up drinking it I think.  I can't find it.  I was going to use it to make ranch dressing or butter milk pancakes for breakfast, but my husband got to it first.  Then I rinsed the last of the buttermilk from the butter.

Finally after all that work I mixed in some salt.  Then put it in a small airtight container and put it in the refrigerator to harden. I used it haven't had a chance to use it for any cooking, but I put some of my husband's home-made bread (he makes the bread in our house) and it tasted great.

 

Making Maple Candy

We have just started out on our unit on pioneering.  The whole family is having a great time during this unit.  

The book that we are using for this unit is called Pioneer Sampler by Barbara Greenwood.  Its a great book for us so far.  The book fallows a pioneer family, the Robertsons, that are living on a little farm in the back woods of North America.  With each chapter you learn a little about the life of this pioneer family and the way they live there lives. After each story chapter there is information about the whatever subject is covered in that chapter and usually an activity that you can do.



 One of the chapters we learned about how they use to collect and make maple syrup.  At the end there was an activity on how to make maple sugar candy.  I had found another maple sugar candy recipe that was a bit easier then the one they gave in the book, that we did instead.

Here is our time of making candy. 

 Wonder Girl add the butter.

Measuring and putting in the salt.

 Adding in some maple syrup.

  Stir all everything together.

 

 Dare-Devil Boy couldn't help to have a try.

 Here we are rolled the candy and left them on the tray to harden.

 I forgot to take a picture of how it came out.  But you can see from the last picture it wasn't so bad.  It was good treat and I think I'm going to make them again myself, but dipped in melted chocolate and let harden to make a truffle kind of candy.

Bedtime Stories

There are a few things about me that those that know me well know very well. 

1. The first is that I LOVE the British TV show Doctor Who.  I like both the older series, but love the new series.
2. I hate peanut butter.  Yes, yes, it is true I hate the stuff and haven't eaten a peanut butter sandwich since I was 3 years old.  My mother can verify this.  I can't stand the taste or smell or anything to do with it.

But going back to the first, do to my love of the show Doctor Who I've passed this love of the show down to my daughter, Wonder Girl.  She's more of a fan then myself at times.  So much that she forces her brothers to play "Doctor Who". And her goal is to be one of the "companions" of the Doctor when she grows up.


Anyway, one of the actors that have played the Doctor through out the years is David Tennant. He played the 10th Doctor and Wonder Girl's favorite so far.  Well one day while searching on Youtube for a Doctor Who Clip I came across some great videos with David Tennant telling a story.  I compare it to like the British version of Reading Rainbow.


So here are some of the videos for you.  They are cute and my kids love them.  They watch them at least once a month.  They love the pictures, the story as a whole and how the actor does the voice of each character.










(This one is my kids favorite)



Also for those that don't know anything about Doctor Who.  He's an alien that time travels.  There is so much more, but that about it in a nutshell and really you can't beat that. Of course it would be better to just check out the website, here if you wanted to know more about the Doctor Who.  But if you don't go to the website here is a great small video that makes us laugh every time we watch it.  It was done for a Christmas charity.