Konos Days

    Thursday is our co-op day. First we have our "regular" homeschool co-op, which is mostly for socializing and getting used to a class room environment, then we have our Konos co-op.  It's just four families, so it's more low-key.  We do Konos activities at home, and then get together to do group activities and give the kids a chance to show off some of the thinsg they worked on at home, such as a written report. 
     We've been going through the Responsibility unit, so we've learned about taking care of pets, beavers, ants, and now, the early settlers.  This weeks focus was on Jamestown; that classic bad example.  To prepare, I fed the kids gruel, and read all sorts of horrifying facts about the "starving time".  During which, they apparently ate everything that it was possible to eat, including themselves.   Bleck.  Disturbingly enough, my kids didn't seem very horrified by this.  "Well, yeah, they were really hungry."  Really, kids? It's called cannibalism, and it's wrong.  Even if the person was dead before you started chowing down on them. 
      Today, all the kids worked on a wattle and daub structure. 

           First they worked at weaving saplings and small branches through some T posts. (I'm sure the Jamestown settler had those, right?)

Then we mixed up some daub, and they packed it on to the woven branches.  Abriel has plastic bags on her hands, because the daub mixture consisted of mud, straw, and horse manure.  I guess we could have been a little less authentic, and omitted the manure, but the kids thought it was gross and funny, and will probable remember the whole experience better for there being poop in it.
      We then led into learning about the Pilgrims, (the good example) by fixing a Mayflower lunch.  It consisted of hardtack, salt pork, cheese, and beer. Non-alcoholic, of course. 

 We then gave our kids a real lunch, because we're not really pilgrims, and hardtack is really hard.