Our Little Prairie Chicks

So, we're living Little House on the Prairie these days. Using the Prairie Primer unit study guide as a roadmap for ideas and "prairie chicken paths" to follow, the girls and I are having too much fun to call it school.

Two little prairie chicks, Theresa (8) and Anna (5 this week).

My time and attention span being limited these days by our upcoming move, we're not getting in as much of the cooking and sewing, and deeper study that I'd like, but just reading these books together is such a wonderful bonding thing for us. We all cried together today, for instance, when Laura found her dear ragdoll, Charlotte, abandoned in the mud outside the house of that dratted neighbor child, near Plum Creek ~ and Charlotte was missing one shoe-button eye! =sniff=

(Above, a pic of 7-year-old Cathy, showing off her beloved ragdoll, Audrey Anne ~ This child, who almost never gets teary-eyed, definitely empathized with Laura's sorrow!)

A shot of the high prairie near where we live ~ west and over the mountains from where Laura's little house was on the prairie.

Especially since our girls were born on the prairie, and will be moving back there in a couple of weeks, we can associate with so much of the nature in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. And her descriptions are always so perfect, so poetic. Everything about this read is good learning for the girls. The corner where we read about Laura's adventures every morning.

What better way to learn to write well than to read well? By reading the rhythm of words well written? These books are so alive with a sense of place and time, too. How better to gain an interest in natural science? And in the homemaking arts? In frugal living? In proper manners and respect? The Little House books are full of lessons. Every time I read them, I appreciate that more. They're a little blunt sometimes about the harshness of life in the days of our ancestors, but how better to learn the truth of history? The real-life characters who people these books suffered and sacrificed, but exhibited great patience and faith through it all.

What a good example they are to us who feel put out when the vcr doesn't work right!

And, talk about "prairie chicken paths" to follow! There's a Little House Cookbook, more than one Little House craft book, miscellaneous guides and historic accounts and picture books. There's even a Little House Paper Dolls book.

Paula at A Catholic Harvest suggested A Tribute To Charles "Pa" Ingalls, a recording of Pa Ingall's fiddle with Bruce Hoffman playing. We checked it out, ordered it and got it yesterday, then listened to it today while we worked. Even our little two-year-old danced to the fiddle. And it was perfect background music for our theme.