New Sweden and Dala Horses

     We have moved on from Pilgrims to Swedes in our Konos studies.  In between was the Dutch, but I didn't do much at home with them.  It was the week before Halloween, and I was working on costumes instead of doing fun homeschool activities. 
     The Konos activities are a little bit limited when it comes to learning about non-English colonists, but I really wanted the kids to get a little more from learning about  New Sweden, other than that they built log cabins.  Our Konos co-op is going to be doing the cabin bit, so I decided that for our at home activities, I would have each one of the kids paint a little Dala horse, and we would learn some of Sweden's historical culture. 

     I cut out the horses using a pattern I found online, gave them a minimal amount of shaping, and the kids fine sanded them.  Using acrylic paints, they picked out what color they wanted, and painted it solid.

 

I then drew the details with a sharpie on Abriel's and Samuel's.  I copied the designs from the same patterns I used to cut the horses out.  Anna drew her designs by herself.

 

     After they were done painting the details, I redrew the outlines to make it look tidier. I had intended for these to be used as ornaments, but the kids all wanted to use them as toys, and so that is what they have done.  Samuel had his little doll house guy riding around on the Dala horse yesterday.  I think that I might make myself a little Dala horse, since painting them looked like so much fun. And that one will be an ornament.

     Today, continuing with the Swedish theme, we had Swedish meatballs and pepparkakor (aka gingersnaps) for lunch. 

 

      After reading about how the Swedes built log cabins in New Sweden, and why it is such a good house design for settlers, I showed them a clip from the PBS documentary "Alone in the Wilderness" about Dick Proenneke building his log cabin.  It really sparked an interest in the kids, particularly Samuel.  He is very keen on building his own log cabin now, and kept getting out of bed tonight to ask me more questions on Dick Proenneke.  Like, did he have a car or electricity, and did he hunt for food. 

     Samuel is very into hunting right now, although not so much into killing.  He goes back and forth between wanting to shoot a bear with a bow, and not wanting to eat meat, because he doesn't want any animals to die.    He is very conflicted about the whole food chain thing.  Although he didn't seem to mind wolfing down a bunch of meatballs today. 



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.

Konos Notebooks

     The kids spent yesterday assembling their Konos notebooks from the Patience unit we finished at the end of April.  This was the first Konos unit we've done, and we all loved it.  The notebooks were started as an after thought, as in, "Since we're doing all this neat stuff, we really need something to remember it all. "  While the kids were putting together their notebooks, I was gratified to see how looking at the pictures and worksheets brought back memories of what they had learned.  Definitely not a wasted effort, and they are so proud of them.

     I have them in three prong folders rather than in three ring binders because I wanted to be more of a book, that they could carry around and show people.  I'll have a notebook folder for each unit we do.

     The pages are a combination of scrap booking style pages with pictures of the activities we did, and worksheets that were completed as part of our studies.  Abriel's notebook is showing some of the naked egg experiments we did.  We removed the shells of several eggs with vinegar, then saw how far they could be dropped before they broke, dehydrated one in corn syrup, and rehydrated some in dyed water, so that they turned into brightly colored egg balloons.
     Anna's notebook is showing off the chart they made showing the gestation periods of different animals.  Samuel's is showing him winding silk thread off of silk worm cocoons. Now that is a lesson in patience!  There are also pictures of our chickens when they were babies.  We helped incubate and hatch them as part of our Konos studies. 

     More pages, showing a recipe for bread rolls that the kids made, egg relay races and other egg related fun, and pictures of our tadpoles turning into froglets.
     Getting the notebooks assembled made me realize how much we did, and how many great memories the the kids have of hands on learning experiences and being with friends.  Among the things shown here we also, dissected a frog, made a co-operative garden, (that we are still working on) learned about the first passover, and then celebrated a Seder meal. So many good memories.

Zoo Birds

     We have been a part of a Konos group for a few months now, and we are currently learning about birds. 

Yesterday, twelve kids, four moms, and one dad (Dave) packed up and went to the zoo to look at different types of birds. (and other animals, of course)    Despite the heat, and trying to keep track of all the little ones running around like crazy, it was a fun day. Crazy, but fun.

     There were quite a few different birds, but my favorite was the Roseate Spoonbill. Those things don't even look real.  They look like something you would see in a cartoon.

         This was Samuel and Abriel's favorite, "Because it has hair that goes, POOF!"

       The crane was Anna's favorite.

     There was a really cool bird show, where we got to see some amazing birds, perform tricks, fly on cue, and even talk.

     Of course, no trip to the zoo would be complete without seeing a couple of giant tortoises go at it. That was fun explaining. Haha