Coon Skin Cap

You might remember that I8 had been doing a unit on Cowboy Charlie this past fall. He loves all things pioneer and Old West! I was commissioned to help him make a coon skin cap which I undertook using instructions from the Homeschool in the Woods unit on the Early 19th Century.

He chose some "fur" that didn't look like a coon at all and I started the task. Then Christmas happened and you know we got him the Frontier Craft Kit and of course it had a coon skin cap! Not only that, but you could buy just coon tails. So, we got one for J5- just the tail. When it showed up in his stocking he had one thing to say, "Santa went coon huntin'!" That one still makes me laugh!

Great set of directions, but I didn't need to do the tail directions after buying them from the Corps of Rediscovery.

The finished product- is that a crazy nice hat or what?

Just getting started...

He loves this cap! Here he is wearing it when we took our tracking walk. Wait till you see all the tracks we were able to see. I8 has finished his fringed coin bag and the tomahawk. He started the possibles bag, but we need a little modern intervention to kick start that one again. I still need to finish putting together J5's cap, but I8 has been enjoying his for a few weeks now. Imagine sitting in a meeting and sewing a coon cap for your boy. Yeah...

Oh and the tail is real!

Pioneer Living- Hunting Bag

I8 has been taking a Pioneer Living class at our homeschool co-op this semester. He adores this class! They have learned to start fires, cook things over a fire, dry apples, work with wood, etc. Early on I8 enthusiastically took on making a hunting bag.

He'd been dying to use a sewing machine and now it's finished! He brought it home yesterday...he finished the hard work reportedly giving up more "fire" lessons/bowl making to complete his project.

Nice bag I8!

What can't this bag do? Right now it's full of hiking materials- binoculars and a compass and a trail map. But it makes a perfect Indiana Jones satchel as well!

This morning as I came walking down the hallway I was greeted by a hunter and tracker trying to move stealthily across the room without being seen by enemies...

I need to be more careful around the house...didn't realize the dangers afoot!

Rockwell Museum Part 2

In addition to the art work at the museum, there were some artifacts from The Old West as well. You know, of course, that my boys were all about the guns. Rifles, revolvers, pistols...they really enjoyed them all. You must know that I8 asked Dan if he could carve him a gun from The American Boy's Handy Book. That book is a post all its own! He even thought he saw a Peace Medal that Thomas Jefferson gave to Lewis and Clark to hand out to the Indians on their Expedition. I8 is really becoming an expert on all things west!

Blurry rifles- sorry, but I8 would not stand for them to be left out of this post! We had a great conversation about rifles...how they work and the parts. He even explained them to me based on descriptions of Pa's guns in the Little House series. And people think those books are just for girls...

Revolvers- and the boys loved that there were drawers they could pull out to see more. Whoever cleans fingerprints there might have some extra work this week. Ahem.

Didn't we all have a cap gun like this once? The engraving designs on the barrels were really quite nice. These, of course, are all guns from long ago that would have been used when cowboys roamed the west and earlier too.

There were displays of artifacts made and used by the Native Americans in the southwest. The American Girl Josefina would have used a pots just like these. R10 might enjoy seeing them.

You can't study westward expansion and not talk about The Pony Express! I8 read a book on that too (he's been reading non-stop) and really loved the stories of the riders and their harrowing adventures delivering the mail on time.

There were a few places where there were items the children could handle. Normally, there is a whole room full of dress up, but it was under construction.

We almost missed this guy jumping out of the wall! The front of the exterior of the building has a buffalo bursting out of the brick wall- very clever.

This enormous painting was on the third floor and I8 explained to me all about how the Indians hunted buffalo. Then we had fun sitting on those art museum benches acting out shooting an arrow from a bow. Good all around boy things for an art museum visit!

I8 has had a thoroughly grand time studying this time in American History. This week we are making a coon skin cap and making plans for a chuck wagon meal. This field trip was a fantastic opportunity.

As Hannibel from the A-Team would say, "I love it when a plan comes together."

The Rockwell Museum of Western Art

Today we took an impromptu field trip to this museum of western art to see...any guesses? The art work of Charles M. Russell (Cowboy Charlie!). We were going to the FLL tournament in the same town and I took the two younger boys for the fun.

Not having been to art museum with my kids yet, I wasn't sure what to expect, but if you have the chance to be near the Southern Tier of NY, I highly recommend it! They did a really good job of engaging the kids and I'm looking forward to going again this time with all the kids when R10 has begun the American Girl Josefina.

The boys were able to do a scavenger hunt looking for elements in the paintings on each floor. At the end they got a little prize to take home along with their papers. They also have back packs you can take a long which have activities in them that focus on different aspects of the paintings they have in residence. Oh and pardon the poor picture quality...these were taken without flash (of course!) with my cell phone. The other camera was with the FLL team!

Charles Russell is considered one of the best animal painters in the world and he loved painting everything about the west. According to the facts at the back of the book Cowboy Charlie, his is the only statue of an artist in the Rotunda of the Capital building in Washington, DC.

This has been a great study for I8! I'm so excited we got to visit his paintings. It was really cool to show him that these were paintings that Cowboy Charlie actually painted. They were not copies. And for our first trip to an all out art museum, it was terrific!

Adventure Reading

You can't keep a good boy down...he'll always look for the adventure. That's our I8. He's been reading about frontier adventure non-stop these last several weeks.

We are having a great time exploring with Lewis and Clark. Up next is a coon skin cap. I've been using Cowboy Charlie from FIAR Volume 4 as a base for the study and we've added in elements from various places including Homeschool in the Woods The Early 19th Century Time Travelers Study.

Cowboy Charlie

We've been spending a lot of time with the volume 4 FIAR book Cowboy Charlie by Jeanette Winter. I8 is having a year of adventure in his homeschool and this book is providing a lot of topics to investigate. He has been working on notebook pages of all kinds of people from old west times/the time of westward expansion in the US. And he's been doing a lot of reading!

He uses Draw Write Now to make some drawings and do copywork. Now he's also making his own drawings and narrations after reading. Isn't that a nice drawing of Lewis and Clark?

I8 made a list of the things he could explore from Cowboy Charlie according to the suggestion in the manual.

The kids have been doing a lot of pioneer log building!

A Glimpse of Adventure: The Adventure Journal

I8 has been studying Cowboy Charlies for a few weeks now. Intended to be a two week unit study, we have been going longer just so he can immerse himself in adventure for as long as he like to be there. As part of his study, he's been keeping an Adventure Log. The Adventure Log is a just a way for him to summarize all the events and people he's been reading about. It was his idea so I thought I'd let him keep it the way he likes.

Basically, he records the date and the weather for the day and then writes about something he's been reading about- usually a partial account of something in a book he's read about a person from long ago. He's been reading stacks of books about Kit Carson, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, etc.

This one is about Daniel Boone. He likes to add a picture.

I have been helping to correct the biggest mistakes, but for the most part this has not been a grammar assignment.

I8 is a 3rd grade leftie. He really hates writing in a spiral notebook because the binding gets in his way. So, I thought we'd try the composition book and that seems to work really well. I'm not sure it does much for his handwriting to use wide rule instead of 3rd grade handwriting paper. Anyone have an opinion?

I've been giving him some mapping assignments based on the story Cowboy Charlie. He's been labeling places that Cowboy Charlie traveled and how he got there. I just put the assignment on the back of the map. So clever.

 He's been really enjoying the adventure study and it goes right along with one of his co-op classes this semester- Pioneer Living. He's learned to start fires, cook over a fire, and make hunting bags, etc. We are going to attempt a coon skin cap and we have a few other things in mind before we leave this adventure behind. I'll try to list out the things we've been working on in another post.