Fiddle

Pa played his fiddle for Laura & Mary. Their favorite song was "Pop, Goes the Weasel." Today, we made an instrument.

Supplies:
- tissue box
- paper towel roll
- rubber bands (different thicknesses)
- scissors
- glue or tape

1. With the tissue box, take out the plastic and cut the tissue box into an oval. (Just trimming a little off of the sides).
2. Stretch the rubber bands around the box. We talked about how the thicker rubber bands make a different sound than the thin ones. The same is with a fiddle: the thicker strings have a lower tone than the thin strings.
3. Cut one end of the paper towel roll. Tuck it under the rubberbands to hold it in place. Use glue or tape if needed.
All done.
If you hold it up to your chin, it looks like a fiddle.
What is the difference between a fiddle and violin? Answer: The way it is played. A Fiddler plays Bluegrass or Country type music and a Violinist plays Classical music. The fiddle & violin are the same instrument.
When you hold our homemade instrument to the side, it looks like a guitar.
Our musicians! We sang "Pop, Goes the Weasel" and the girls would POP their fiddle strings.
Then we gathered around the Autoharp. We looked at the strings (thicker & longer-lower, thinner & shorter -higher). Each child took turns strumming it. We sang "Skip to my Lou" while the girls danced to the Autoharp.
Then we documented the activity for our Lap Book.
I love the lap book because even when our fiddles get over-loved and fall apart, we will still have the rubber band in our book to POP. Here is the address for putting the Lap Book together. http://lapbooklessons.com/LittleHouseintheBigWoodsLapbook.html

Homemade Butter

We had a lot of fun making yummy homemade butter this week!

Supplies needed:

• heavy cream
• empty baby food jar
• pinch of salt
• marble

Fill the container up about half way, you want to make sure and leave enough space for it to shake around.

Add just a pinch of salt.

Drop your marble in and screw the lid on tight!

And then start shaking!! It took about ten minutes and gave the girls and good workout:)

The butter will start to clump together and form a ball, and that's how you know it's done. Then you pour off the buttermilk and save to make something yummy later.

Give it a taste to see how fresh and creamy it is.

We spread it on our Johnny cakes and rolls.

Johnny Cakes

We enjoyed making Johnny Cakes this week in book club. Laura and Mary used to help their mother cook these so the men would have something to eat when they came in from the fields. Laura never understood why they were called Johnny Cakes when it was more bread than cake. Ma thought maybe it was because they called the Southern soldiers Johnny Rebs and they ate so much of it. But she wasn't sure.
Recipe for Johnny Cakes
1 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tbsp. salt
½ cup water
1 lb. of bacon (we used half)
Instructions:
In a bowl, mix the corn meal with the salt and sugar.
Add water and mix until you get a nice paste. Form the paste into patties and set aside.
Fry bacon. Remove bacon and fry the cakes in the bacon grease until golden brown.

Add the sugar, salt, corn meal,

and water

And then stir it all up.

Fry the bacon and set aside and place the Johnny cakes in the hot bacon grease.

We topped with fresh homemade butter. They tasted ok but not great. Some of the girls liked them better then others. There are other recipes that call for more ingredients and probably taste better but I really wanted to make them authentic, so the girls could see what food tasted like back then.

Doll Dress

Laura & Mary used scraps of fabric to make small dresses for their rag dolls.
Supplies:
Fabric
Fabric Scissors
Needle & Thread or Sewing Machine
Yarn with large eye needle (or Snap Fastiner)

1.Make a Pattern. Outline the rag doll to make a pattern.

2.Cut 2 pieces ¼ inch larger (all the way around) than pattern for seam allowance.

3.Stitch sides and arms. We did this with a sewing machine (the girls learned how to push the pedel slowly).

4.Hem dress. We let the girls do this part by hand, just like how Laura & Mary used to sew.

5.Finish arm & neck holes. Turn in fabric a bit and stitch. (the neck hole will be pretty wide).

6.Use yarn to stitch around the neck. Put tape on the end of the yarn, to thread the needle. After you put the dress on the doll, you can gather up the neckline a bit.

7. Tie a bow.

Note: The yarn is pretty tough to get through the material. So we used a snap fastiner for some of our dresses (but then you have to make a seam down the back, leaving 2 inches at the top open.) However, the neckline didn't look as good from the front. So now with doing both ways, I like the yarn better.

Sewing doll dresses was fun. But we are thankful that we don't have to make all of our clothes, like Ma did back then.