We have been listening to the Little House on the Prairie series on cd in the car for several months now.  We are all enjoying it as a family.  It has inspired many interesting discussions and activities.

We now have sourdough starter in the house and have been baking and making all sorts of goodies with it.

We have been able to have excellent discussions on our family philosophy (we try!) of “use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.”  Gratitude is something we are all working on.  Talking about how grateful the characters are for the little they do have has become a theme whenever the boys start talking about “needing” something.  We discuss whether it is truly a need or maybe just a want.

We have talked about money, food, feeding animals, different geographical ares of the US, storms, siblings and more.

We made a button lamp and Simon has become interested in sewing.  He was extremely proud of his first project…a pocket.

We still have 2 and a half books to go.  After that there are companion books and biographical histories of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life.  It has been the perfect way to unschool.  We are enjoying learning about something together that Simon chose and through that we are learning all sorts of other things.  He asks questions, we help him find answers.  If there is something I think is interesting in the book that they have missed then I can introduce it.  They can take it or leave it.

If anyone has any suggestions on what to read/listen to after this, please let me know!

the Simon tasted the honeysuckle!

We were riding bikes on the Riverwalk on Mother’s Day when we discovered mulberry trees with berries that weren’t quite ready.  Simon and I went back this week to see if they were ripe.  There were only a few ripe ones but tons of honeysuckle vines.  If you haven’t done it before…you pick a honeysuckle flower, pop off the green end (calyx) pull out the string (style) and voila a drop of honeysuckle!  

Simon and Owen always love a good blind taste test (started a while back with multi colored carrots) so we tried the white flowers and then the yellow flowers.  Next we each give each other a blind taste test.  When we were tasting them it seemed that the yellow tasted better but in the blind taste test neither of us could discern the difference.

For you locals this entrance to the Riverwalk is called the Amnicola Marsh entrance and is a great place for watching birds and turtles.