Little House & The Farm, Part 7: Handcrafted and Homemade

It is always a little sad when good things come to an end. Stores smell of fresh school supplies this time of year and even though the summer is in full heat and harvest, its end is just around the corner. This summer, moving with the rhythm of my boys' interests felt like such a freedom. And as such, we did not get to everything we originally planned in the Sprout Scouts Playcamp--which is totally OK! With that in mind, we have a few more themes we do want to squeeze into these last long days of summertime and it's time to wrap up our time in the past with our Little House & the Farm theme. We will surely be continuing to read aloud from the series, especially during long summer Shabbats and many of the activities we did over these past couple of weeks will return for repeat visits and time goes on.

We had one of those "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Days" here earlier this week when I set out a simple button and pipe cleaner craft at our Morning Work table. Both boys loved it! S mastered the fine motor skill of stringing buttons onto his pipe cleaner and Y mastered the fine motor skill of using his pincer grasp to select one button at a time for me to string on his pipe cleaner.

Well, using these buttons reminded S of sewing and he wanted to sew from there! So when Y was taking his morning nap, I put together a small plastic canvas and sewing kit for S. He worked with the plastic canvas and embroidery thread for a bit and then wanted to sew some buttons on. That reminded him of his needlepoint that we started over the winter. He decided to use that to sew on some buttons with regular thread and a needle (and his Mommy's help) and from there, he decided to use his ruler to measure how big it was. This is when he decided it was all finished and that he wanted to turn it into a pillow!

His Mommy helped finish the last bit of sewing after he chose a fabric for the back and now his dolls have a brand new pillow to sleep on!

Well, after we finished working on that, he admired the buttons on his finished needlepoint and that reminded him he wanted more buttons! So it was off to the craft supply store with a gift card I had for stored up rewards points and both boys started their own button collections. It is so much fun to watch them appreciate the small notions that brought such joy to Laura and Mary in Little House in the Big Woods and quite nostalgic to remember my own bead and button collections as a little girl. My older sister taught me all about "bartering" and "negotiating" through collected beads and buttons and now I can share these same hands on lessons with the boys.

Watching them observe, trade and design with their collected buttons and beads gave me the inspiration for this Morning Work activity to design with loose parts on mirrors using their special collections. S enjoyed arranging designs around his mirror and Y got a real kick out of placing fruit shaped buttons upside down and looking at their reflections!









As our weeks draw to a close, the boys get increasingly excited for Shabbos here. Shabbos, among other things, means tasty home-baked treats and challah! S loves to help me bake and even takes great pride in deciding what we will make for Shabbos dessert. Y loves to help shape challah just as much as his older brother and both boys enjoy the eating part.


I remember as a young girl in Hebrew school we once made "challah babies" out of stuffed stockings braided like challahs and decorated to look like babies. An amazing teacher in S's school actually used this method to teach her students to braid challah and I combined the ideas this morning with a laminated visual aid for each boy to explore at his own level. Y is years away from braiding and had a lot of fun playing with the "dough" nonetheless, but S actually got the hang of it with my help!

S asked me to sew the challahs together as a permanent braid. I gave him the option to leave them as "play challahs" for our Shabbos toy set that we take out each week or to turn them into challah baby dolls. He wanted to keep them as toy challahs! Tomorrow morning the boys will get to shape their own loaves of challah to bake fresh for Shabbos. Baking was such an integral part of the Ingalls home and I am so glad it is an integral part of ours as well. With Rosh Chodesh Elul just upon us, it's time to start stocking up on baked goods and challah for the yom tovim! There are so many valuable lessons to take from the Little House books. The Ingalls family must always use what they have and to its greatest possible potential. There's no running to Walmart every time the whim strikes and more and more, I try to live this way and convey it to the boys as well. This morning we used that washboard again to make music while we sang songs from our Ever-changing Book!
The second great lesson I take from reading the Little House books is to slow down. Summer days are long lasting but short lived. But for now, there is nothing urgently calling upon me (even if it often feels that there is). We can slow down, smell the challah baking and taste the sweetness of each day as it comes. Next week we will be back to explore a favorite theme of ours--rocks! And I'll even throw in a bonus post on our Grow Your Own Green Thumb theme that will take you from Garden to Table (and even the Farmers' Market). Until then...

Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 6: Washing Day!

Farming and homesteading in the times of the Pioneers was a lot of work! It can be difficult to convey, let alone personally grasp the amount of time, effort and preparation that went into the most mundane tasks we now take for granted. In Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, Ma has a weekly routine of chores set up. Now we may spend parts of a day (sometimes every day) doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, shopping for groceries and household items. For Laura and her family, a task like making butter for the household could take much of a day. Grocery stores the way we know them were still years away and General Stores were miles away without the convenience of modern transportation. As much as I complain about laundry (and I complain about it a lot), we have it pretty easy here with a washer and dryer right in our kitchen. Nonetheless, I splurged (with a credit I had) on Amazon and bought an old fashioned washboard. I wanted to set up a play scene outside for the boys to try out their own washing day and it just so happened that Monday of this past week was [finally] the perfect weather after a week of rainy days. Gosh, I can't imagine how a week like that would have affected Ma's chore routine!

I have to admit that many times when I set up an activity, I have an inkling of whether it will be enjoyed for a long while, quickly tried or not appreciated at all. And sometimes I have no clue! This time, I was pleasantly surprised with just how much both boys loved our washing day! I set up a simple three step station to

1. Scrub: I set up the bin of our sensory table right on the grass with soapy water, our washboard and a handful of square washcloths/dishrags. I used peppermint castile soap as it is gentle on little hands and also a wonderful laundry detergent in a pinch! 
2. Rinse: I set a second, smaller plastic basin with just plain water for rinsing.
3. Dry: We don't have a drying rack but our sensory table base was the perfect height and setup for a makeshift clothes line. I tied on three rows of twine and added in a collection of wooden clothes pins.

When it was time to go outside, I gave a brief demo of the three steps to the boys. I showed how to use the washboard to scrub the washcloths, how to ring out the wet, soapy rags, how to rinse and ring again and two ways to hang them to dry (this step would likely be more geared toward S). One way was to use a couple of clothespins and the other was to drape the towel folded over the twine. Then it was up to them to have at it and get to work!

They had so much fun! As we worked, we sang a little song to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat:

Wash, wash, washing day,
Washing day is here!
Wash, wash, wash away,
We do our work with cheer!

Y particularly loved the song! He may or may not have climbed into the soapy water a couple of times as well. S spent a good long while mastering the technique of using clothespins on the clothesline. He was so proud to have mastered it! This is a great activity to incorporate both gross and fine motor skills as children at different ages and stages maneuver their way around all three stations, scrubbing against the washboard, ringing out cloths, and hanging them to dry. And while I cannot guarantee that practicing laundry as a child will yield an adult love of the chore (I used to love pretending to iron and I have ironed once ever in my entire adult life), it is a likely your little ones will enjoy this activity now!

And when it comes to chores and household tasks, Ma had the right idea in creating a predictable routine and engaging the help of her children each at their own level and abilities. And after Ma came Maria Montessori who was a huge advocate of teaching children practical life skills both in the classroom and at home. Creating ways in which certain chores are able to be done with or by the younger members of our family is a way we incorporate a bit of Montessori style in our own home. Even very young members of the family benefit from contributing to household tasks and feel quite eager and important when doing so. Sure, folding the actual laundry takes a bit longer when S wants to do all the washcloths, rags and dish towels himself, but when we can afford to include the boys in these seemingly mundane tasks, we do a great deal to foster their own independence, confidence and competence. Think of it kind of like an investment plan!

Happy Household Helping and Playing!

Little House & the Farm, Part 5: 3 Themed Play Activities with Cinnamon Spice Playdough

Playdough is currency here. Both my boys would be totally content to play with it every day and maybe even all day! We use plenty of store-bought playdoughs and I even allow mixing colors (gasp!) but I love making our own. It's cheap, it's fast, it's fun and it is also quite nostalgic for me as I recall my own mother making playdough for us at home (and in her classrooms).

I especially love the option with homemade playdough to add in unique colors, scents and textures. On a whim before heading out to host our most recent Park n'Play Group, I whipped up a batch of sparkly blue lavender scented playdough for the children to use when they were done painting clouds on mirrors. We packed along some rolling pins, plastic knives and cookie cutters and this was as popular an activity with our group as the mirror painting!

At home, I often have a little helper or two when making playdough. With any cooking activity that involves the stove top, support and supervision are a must. Additionally, you'll want to be prepared that the dough will be too hot to handle right away, especially for little hands. For our Little House & The Farm play theme, I really wanted a dough with a theme related feel. Nothing to me says homestead more than the scent of cinnamon spice. This playdough smells good enough to eat and is technically edible, but not at all tasty, so you'll want to inform your little ones that it is to play with and not to taste.

To make Cinnamon Spice Playdough
You will need:

• 1 cup white flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 TBSP cream of tartar
• 2-3 teaspoons cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, all-spice, cloves, nutmeg (in any combination)
• 1 TBSP oil
• 1 cup water

Instructions: In a medium sized saucepan, combine all of your ingredients and mix well. In this dough, your spices give both a scent and a lovely color. Add as much as you like in whatever combination you prefer to achieve your desired shade and scent. Turn the heat on your burner to medium/medium-low. You'll need to keep stirring as the dough cooks and thickens. It may be a bit lumpy at first, but rest assured your stirring and kneading and subsequent playing will get those lumps out in no time. This is a very forgiving recipe and while it will be quite sticky as it thickens, your pan will come clean with a good scrape from a spatula and the dough itself. Anything left behind does best to be soaked in soapy water and easily washed away. Once your dough is thickened to a large ball in the center of the pot, you're ready to remove it from the heat. Wait a bit until it is cool enough to handle (please carefully test it before giving it to children) and knead it well on a cutting mat or art mat. Once it is cool enough to handle, you're ready to play! Store in an airtight container or ziplock bag between use. Dough generally keeps for at least a couple of weeks this way.

1.  Cinnamon Spice Bakery: Our first themed activity with our playdough was to play about baking with it! All throughout the Little House books, Ma is baking breads, cookies, cakes, pancakes and more! Add in some plastic knives, rolling pins, cookie cutters and kitchen utensils and you're ready to bake just like Laura and her family!
2. Invitation to Build a Farm: Wooden craft sticks in two widths and a collection of small plastic farm animals (these are from Walmart) were set out on our sectioned tray for the boys to build their own farms. This is a great way to incorporate STEM and building activities into sensory play! I did not give specific instructions, but rather allowed each of the boys to explore the materials as they wished. 

   

   Y enjoyed gathering and collecting (aka: hoarding) materials and squishing them into the dough. He also acted out little scenes with the animals walking along the table.

   
   

   

   S had a whole story line going with the animals in his craft stick fence. The cat was quite sad because her mother was gone. The other animals helped to look after her while she waited for Mother Cat to return.

3. Invitation to Build Your Own Little House: One of the most fascinating parts of the second of the Little House books, Little House on the Prairie is when Pa builds the family's new home out of logs and wood! My First Little House Books: A Little Prairie House adapted from the Little House books is a great version of this to share with the younger crowd and has beautiful illustrations by Renee Graef to go along. We scored a set of Lincoln Logs from a local thrift shop a while back and added those in along with the wooden craft sticks in this invitation to play. You could easily do without the Lincoln Logs and you could also add in wood blocks of another kind or even twigs and natural loose parts for building. The boys had so much fun building their own unique log cabins.

 Building with Lincoln Logs can often be a little challenging for young children as they learn to master the art of balancing the groves properly so their structures don't topple over. The addition of playdough to this mix allowed a whole new dimension of building--even working vertically for S and he took his building to all new heights (literally).

I hope this simple recipe and the ideas to accompany it inspire some fun sensory and STEM play in your own home. We have more themed fun coming up and until then...


Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 4: Hand-Dyeing Fabric with a Modern Twist

One of the most fascinating aspects of learning about young Laura Ingalls Wilder's life has been comparing the many similarities of her interests and activities to S's own. He and young Laura (who in the first of the Little House books is 4 just like he is) both love to play with dolls and help bake and clean the house and work in the garden. However, unlike S, when Laura would want a toy doll to play with, she could not go to Walmart and buy one; her mother had to make one! And she did not have the choice of home-baked bread or store-bought-- nearly everything she ate was grown, harvested and prepared at home without the modern luxury of ovens, stove tops or even refrigerators and freezers. S has particularly enjoyed working with sewing and fabrics over the course of our Little House & the Farm playtheme (and Y has benefited from the fruits of our labor as well!) and he was very eager to try his hand at dyeing fabric with me one morning.

There are many ways to hand-dye fabric at home and certainly many that would be historically more accurate that the way we went with! Natural dyes can be made from so many plants, produce and spices you have on hand or in the garden. We took a modern twist on this and I bought some Kool-aid packets! I wanted a dye option that was safe for little hands to handle and not too time/labor intensive as I wanted to be able to squeeze this activity in while the smaller set of the small hands in this family were having a morning nap.

We used:

• Kool-aid packets in red, orange yellow, blue, and purple (we mixed our own green)
• white vinegar
• water and an electric kettle (you can boil water on stove-top as well)
• one large pot, six smaller bowls, a colander, a teaspoon
• small rubber bands
• white bandannas and white tea towels--SPOILER ALERT and little kitchen science in action, the tea towels came out of the wash white again so if you want a permanent dye job, be sure to opt for natural fiber (cotton) or a more permanent dyeing process)

*rubber gloves (optional)--our hands did come out quite colorfully, which now makes me question was Kool-aid does on the inside if you drink it!
You may also wish to protect your clothing and work space.

I prepped our fabric by soaking in boiling water and a couple of teaspoons of white vinegar. Because this activity involves very hot water, you will need adult support and supervision. I imagine working with water that is actually boiling or using the microwave (as many online tutorials suggest) might provide a more vibrant color and perhaps more permanent results in some fabrics, but I wanted S to be able to participate, so I boiled water in advance and we waited for it to cool a bit before he was able to touch it. I was more process than product focused with this activity.

As the fabric soaked, we prepared six colors of dye: red, orange, yellow, green (yellow and blue), blue and purple Kool-aid powder each mixed with hot water and about equal amounts of white vinegar. I squeezed out the fabric before we tied them off in sections with small rubber bands. Please be sure an adult does the ringing out here as the water in the pot (and fabric) may still be hot. We dipped our fabric into one color, one section at a time. We were not particularly exact in how long we let them soak but we sure had fun watching the colors soak into the fabric and mix!

When each piece of fabric was fully dyed, we removed the rubber bands and gave them a good squeeze and rinse through the colander.

It was so much fun to reveal the surprise designs made by the dye and the rubber banded sections!

I ran all of the pieces through the dryer first, even before washing, in the hopes of setting our stain in! As mentioned above, the tea towels did revert to white again (amazing!) after being run through a cold wash afterward, but they will surely still be useful and perhaps we will try our hands at dyeing another way in the future. The bandannas retained their color and are lovely cloth napkins now! We use cloth napkins (mostly purchased from secondhand stores) daily for meals which saves us a lot on the cost of paper products and waste. S is always eager to choose one of the hand-dyed napkins and thank goodness we made two, because Y wants the very same thing!

It is so incredible to learn about the handcrafts and household tasks of yesteryear. It is also such a luxury that we can travel by car to the store and buy the food and materials we need and quickly bring them home and easily use, preserve, wash and use them again. These are truly things that we take for granted! I love exploring handcrafts with young children because I believe it fosters creativity, feelings of confidence and competence, a sense of slowing down and being connected with our resources as well as with each other.

We will be back with some fun ways to use playdough for sensory play and a STEM activity related to our theme and until then...

Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 3: Doll Making with Young Children

I've written before on Handcrafting for Little Hands and I knew I wanted to incorporate some handcrafting into our Little House & The Farm play theme. One of the most whimsical aspects of the Little House books is how the girls play with their dolls. S especially loves baby dolls and really enjoyed hearing the parts in Little House in the Big Woods about Mary's rag doll and Laura's wish for a rag doll that finally gets fulfilled in the winter holiday season. I decided we would surely try our hands at some ways of making our own dolls here. Sewing is a bit beyond S's capability at 4 years old, though he loves to practice stitching with a blunt needle on burlap or plastic canvas. He loved a laminated/velcro version of these Pioneeer paper dolls I prepared in our Ever-changing Book and both boys had fun using glue, ribbon, fabric scraps and buttons to create their own paper dolls.

1. Paper Dolls Collage
I gave each boy a small basket with yarn for hair and a couple of googly eyes. S decided to use buttons for eyes instead; what a creative idea! They shared the center materials between each other and I set out some colored pencils for added details as well. Once they were dry, they could use them in play or to hang on display!

Doll making need not be a very advanced activity, and in this second version, even young hands can help!



2. Yarn Dolls
I came across this great tutorial on making yarn dolls from Little House Living and decided to give it a whirl! We used some acrylic yarn we had on hand and you can use any yarn at all. You don't even need a whole skein--we made four dolls with plenty of yarn left to spare. Choose your favorite solid color or variegated yarn and begin by wrapping 20-30 times around the width of your fingers. I have a small hand, so I spread my fingers a bit. This will be the arms and hands of your doll.

Cut your yarn and tie a small length of yarn about half an inch in on either side. These will be the doll's hands. Cut the loops to create the fingers.

For the body, wrap yarn around a book or piece of cardboard 20-30 times. Not so ironically, the book closest to me was Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods! For the girl doll, I wrapped around the width of the book. For the boy doll, I wrapped around the length of the book.

Cut your yarn and tie off a piece of yarn about a half an inch from the top. This will be the top of the head and hair. You can leave it in loops like a bun or cut the loops for spiky hair! Tie another piece of yarn about an inch down to create the head. Cut through the loops on the other end of the body. Next, you'll separate the yarn into two sections. Slip your arms up below the head and pull the yarn of the body over top. Tie a piece of yarn below that to secure the arms in place. 

For a "boy" doll, you can separate the remaining strands of yarn into two sections and braid each section into legs or simply tie each section about an inch from the bottom. I opted to braid the legs.

For the "girl" doll, simply trim any uneven ends to create her skirt and you're done!

S and Y love these little dolls so much. S especially liked helping to wind the yarn around the book and Y carried his doll with him all the way to the library story time and kept showing it off the librarian! 

The final doll in our post is more of an adult project (in case you were looking for one) or a great first sewing project for an older child! I adapted the tutorial for Pioneer Handkerchief Dolls at Homemaker's Journal and used some of the Paw Patrol fabric and ribbons the boys bought at our General Store to surprise them each with their own Little House with a Modern Twist rag doll!

I have to admit, this took me back to my own days at day camp taking a summer sewing class and making dozens of different types of dolls. There is something so special about handmade toys and even at just 4 and 1, S and Y already seem to appreciate that. 

No doll is complete without a blanket to help put her to sleep! Quilting was surely a popular and necessary handcraft in the days of the pioneers, but also one that is yet a bit beyond my little guys. Using tacky glue and fabric squares and scraps on a sheet of felt was the perfect way to introduce the concept to them and a way they could each make a warm and cozy quilt for their new rag dolls. I also set out some buttons, which both boys seem to love! Once the glue was good and dry, they were ready to be used with our dolls or hung on display. 

While modern day conveniences (and Paw Patrol) are lovely aspects of the age we live in, it is fun and fascinating to dabble in the ways of the past and to play and imagine about how Laura and her siblings must have lived. Handcrafts need not become lost arts and indeed, there is a great deal of joy and meaning that comes from creating something with love and intention. We will be back with a colorful spin on hand dyeing fabric in our next post. Until then...

Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 2: The General Store

As I was gathering materials and ideas for our current play theme, Little House & The Farm, I came across a lot of wonderful resources and ideas on other blogs, Little House websites and homeschool websites. One of my favorites is this free printable Little House in the Big Woods & Pioneer Unit available at Every Star is Different (an especially useful site for those interested in Montessori style education). I tend to add my own flavor to printable materials, and I decided to adapt many of these into our Ever-changing Book. S especially took to "The General Store" activity. I laminated the cards provided in the free printable pack and added in a background page with some images I found of Colonial style General Stores. I added a small pouch of play coins (you could use real coins) and he could "go shopping" by choosing what he wanted to buy and matching the coins. Older children could add up the sum while younger ones would do best to match the coins to the picture. Our play money is true to size, which makes that easier. It also sparked a conversation of similarities and differences between coins and what each coin is called. S had a hard time telling apart the nickles and quarters at first until I showed him that nickels have a smooth edge and quarters have a bumpy one. In addition to matching and observing the spacial awareness to do so, he also worked on one-to-one correspondence and counting as he figured out how many of each coin he needed. When he filled the card, he got to keep it and play again!

Well, this was enough fun that he requested to play the game as is a few times this week. But I wanted to expand the activity into a "real" General Store dramatic play scene so both boys could go shopping Pioneer style! I tried to keep mostly true to the time period with some modern flair thrown in (I'm pretty sure Paw Patrol was not a common calico print of the time). I set up shop on our long dining room table while the boys napped [well, one of them at least] and then it was shopping day!

Our General Store stocked pots and pans, kitchen knives, handsaws and hammers, nails, boots, dried beans, ribbon (that needed to be measured and cut--gotta throw in some math and fine motor practice, right?), fabric, buttons, sugar and even candy! Each of the boys was given a pouch of large play coins (to be a bit more accommodating to Y who still explores with his mouth) and each item would cost one coin (also to be a bit more accommodating to mixed ages). Older shoppers could be encouraged to do a bit of adding while they shop with a more creative pricing system. Even as we set it up, they might have to pay a coin for one pot or 1 foot of yarn (and more if they wanted 2 feet), one scoop of beans or candy and so on.

I stocked shopping bags and drawstring pouches for our shoppers and a sales registry I bought a while ago at Dollar Tree for dramatic play. As they shopped, I wrote down their purchases and added their total. S helped count the appropriate number of coins. He would have spent his whole pouch of money on candy if there weren't a two scoop limit, although he was nearly as excited for the 4 nails to add to his wood shop!

S thoroughly examined the Paw Patrol fabric he wanted to buy before making his final decision. We'd be using this again in projects later in the week...

Y was quite thrilled to be bringing home a new hammer and handsaw! I wonder what he'll build?

It was a great day at the General Store!

This was such a fun way to spend our afternoon engaged in dramatic play. But play is not the only thing that happened--we also learned a bit about history and practiced math skills like measuring, counting, adding and early reading and writing in our print-rich environment. Our play scene was also a great opportunity to practice the social skills of shopping like waiting your turn, navigating a crowded store, and communicating politely with sales associates and other shoppers. The boys demolished the candy, S saved his pouch of sugar to add to our Shabbos dessert recipe later this week and the fabric and ribbons they bought were to make a second surprise appearance in the morning. Join us tomorrow to see what became of them and until then...

Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 1: Sheep's Wool Sensory Bin

The Sprout Scouts Playcamp is taking a trip back in time to when the American Pioneers lived and farmed! We planned to spend a couple of weeks in a farm theme here, one we have definitely explored before and love. We could revisit this theme again and again and never run out of ways to explore the fun and learning that a farm has to offer. But when S sat down beside me while I was re-reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (hey, some of us read trashy romance novels and some of us read young adult historical fiction...) over Shabbos a couple of weeks ago and asked me to read aloud, I gladly obliged. And I also got a BIG idea to give our farm theme a little house flair! How fun would it be to travel back in time to the days of the Pioneers and learn about life on the farm back then.

Our theme started off with a Friday field trip to a local farm museum that welcomes guests for guided tours or just to explore independently throughout the year. We got to pet and feed sheep, meet the cows and pigs and donkeys and even try out some old fashioned tools to cut and chop wood! We could not have asked for a more perfect way to begin our activities this week. I spent many evenings last week and much of Sunday plotting, planning and preparing for a lot of ways to play and learn this week, and I think I might be more excited than even the boys! Join us on our trek back in time as we...

• explore farm animals through songs, sensory play, art and dramatic play
• open our own General Store
• try our hands at doll making in a variety of ways
• engage in some creative Little House Building
• hand dye our own fabric
• test out some old fashioned, tasty treats in the kitchen
• get moving with some old time tunes
• play and learn about work on the farm during the Pioneers' days

...and more!

Feel free to try some or all of the activities at home. We likely won't get to everything I have planned (and I can't stop myself!) right now and that's OK. These activities are ones we will surely enjoy and probably revisit over the course of the year.

Since both boys especially loved seeing, petting and even feeding the sheep on the farm last week, I thought we'd start off the week with an opportunity to explore one of these creatures greatest gifts, wool!

My boys have seen me knitting and needle felting and even helped me pick out yarn at the store, but neither one has ever seen how that yarn came to arrive on the store shelf. As a needle-felter, I have a stash of sheep's wool roving on hand and thought this would be the perfect addition to our sensory table! I headed over to the Dollar Tree to pick up a couple of dog brushes and hair brushes for the boys to use to try carding wool. I can actually remember visiting a museum as a little girl that had a similar setup in an exhibit and loving the experience! I set out a basket of un-dyed wool roving, a few different sets of brushes, a ball of white yarn to see "the finished product" and Google image searched for some photos to show to steps involved from sheep to wool to yarn. With a couple of our favorite plush sheep to keep company while we worked, the boys (even Tatty) were ready to try their hands at carding wool! S was a little confused at first that our wool wasn't "string" yet after he was busy brushing for a while. He even went back to the metal ring of photo cards to see what steps he might be missing! Then I explained, with the help of our photos, that we were only practicing the process of smoothing the wool by carding and that we'd need special tools like a spinning wheel or drop spindle to actually make yarn. He may have been a little disappointed that we didn't have the tools to finish the job, but perhaps we will find a video or local demonstration for him to see.

Both S and Y had fun this morning making some woolly sheep decorations to hang in our window. I prepped this simple activity by cutting the shape of a sheep's body out of clear contact paper and adding black construction paper legs and head with some clear tape on the back. I removed the backing from the contact paper, sticky side up, and the boys were able to stick on cotton balls for wool. Y piled them high and deep and S enjoyed stretching a few across the sticky contact paper.

It's another rainy start to the week here, but this play theme is one that is just as much fun to explore indoors as outside. We'll be back soon with some more old fashioned fun on the farm. Until then...

Happy Playing!