Fireside

Making pioneer food

When learning about the land run we made some recipes that were common among the pioneers at that time.

Strawberry Jam

INGREDIENTS
2 pounds fresh strawberries, hulled
4 cups white sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

DIRECTIONS
In a wide bowl, crush strawberries in batches until you have 4 cups of mashed berry. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, mix together the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to high, and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil, stirring often, until the mixture reaches 220 degrees F (105 degrees C). Transfer to hot sterile jars, leaving 1/4 to 1/2 inch headspace, and seal. Process any unsealed jars in a water bath. If the jam is going to be eaten right away, don't bother with processing, and just refrigerate.

Baking Powder Biscuits(from a 1933 Recipe)

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted flour

2 tsp. baking powder

4 tablespoons butter or shortening

1/2 tsp. salt

about 3/4 cup milk

Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly "knead" for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.

Tyler's solar system experiments

We based Tyler's astronomy this year off of the Apologia Astronomy. It had some good reading and ideas for experiments.

Learning how different types of craters are made

Learning about the magnetic pull in the earth by making a compass.

Making a volcano

Garrett's Trail of Tears story

Journey on the Trail of Tears
By Garrett, 7th grade

January 12, 1838
Splat! I have learned that it is very hard to write while flies are swarming around your head, every time you kill one another takes its place. I am traveling on what many of us call the trail of tears. This is the second journal I’ve had, my other one got so wet and muddy that it was unreadable and I had to replace the pages. I wish that I could remember what all was in it so that I could rewrite it. Oh well, this has probably happened to a lot of people before… I wish we had Samuel back. I have nothing to do but walk, eat, and sleep now that he is gone. He died shortly after he turned three, the whooping cough took him. Mother is missed greatly in this time of sadness too. She died when I was 12, before we were forced to go on this horrid march.

January 13, 1838
Emily and Sarah are doing well. A few days ago they were coughing. We thought that they had the whooping cough too, but it was only the dust. They are twins but they don’t look alike at all. Emily has pitch black hair and really tan skin, she likes to play outside and doesn’t mind getting dirty. Sarah has brownish hair and paler skin. She likes to cook and sew and likes to keep clean. They get along finely, despite their differences. Sarah is cooking the rabbit that I shot this morning on a short hunt. Food is very scarce now and don’t see how the later groups are going to make it.

January 14, 1838
We are one of the first few groups, that is a blessing because we get the little game that the groups in front of us missed. Our leader is Reverend Bushyhead. I think we will cross a big river tomorrow. We have crossed several rivers already but I think this will be the largest by far. Emily is coughing again today I am hoping that it is just the dust again. We will see. Every day at least one person doesn’t get wake up and we have to dig graves. Sometimes the ground is too frozen so we will put them in what little hole we have and cover them with rocks and sticks. The whiskey sellers were here again today. They are like the flies, always buzzing around trying to sell whiskey. Some of the men have completely given up to drink. One night some of them were so drunk that they were singing through the night and we had to bind and gag them so that we could go to sleep.

January 16, 1838
We crossed the river today, it took all day and I am writing by firelight. We didn’t cross on the fifteenth like I thought we would because the river was frozen and the flatboat owners didn’t want to risk it. The water thawed today so the flatboat owners decided to take us across. Emily was better, luckily. It was a rough trip and almost half of the people closed thier eyes the whole time. I know Sarah and Emily did, they were also afraid of the Uktena. The Uktena is like a water monster. Dad said that it likes to dwell in more shallow waters, but they were still afraid.

January 17, 1838
Today was a very sad day, eleven people died. Three of those deaths were caused by alcohol. We ended up digging a mass grave and everyone with shovels had tons of blisters. One of the dead was a chief and his grave was separate. We put a white flag over his grave to let everyone know that a great chief had died there. I hope we are almost done with our journey, but I doubt that we are. We are so tired that the leaders let us rest a few days. That is good news. Maybe we will be able to move faster, but only barely if that is true.

January 18, 1838
Today one of the leaders died. I am not sure what took him, he was old and this whole trip might have just tired him till he went to sleep forever. He was replaced with another man who yelled all of the time. I don’t think I have heard him speak a word yet. Everyone is already tired of him. A very wise quote that I heard a few years ago but still remember is this “The only thing that yelling at people ever did was make them angry”. I think that someone should tell him that or at least hint it to him. Game is getting so scarce that when the hunters go out only half of them return with game. What little game they have is enough to feed just about three families. We still divide it out fairly though.

January 19,1838
We have received news today that the end of the trail is only two or three weeks away. Everyone’s spirits have been lifted and everyone walked a little brisker today. The hunters even came back with more game, I believe that is because we ventured off course a little and there were more animals. This is probably the happiest day yet on this whole trip. We even had a little celebration or at least as close as you can get to a celebration on the trail of tears. I cannot wait until we get there!

Hangin' with friends 2007-08

A few random pics.

Why we choose notebooking

It may be because I have always been a scrapbooker at heart (no, I hardly ever take time to actually work on my scrapbook), but I think notebooking is the most effective way of organizing and learning for all ages.

We have notebooks for everything. Each notebook is a 3-ring binder and each child designs the front of the binder how they want. There is one for each subject we are studying. Most of our work gets put into these notebooks. At least the stuff worth looking back on. This includes photos of our activities and projects, papers, pressed leaves, recipes, you name it.

We have a box of page protectors and each child is responsible for putting their items in the page protectors and into their notebooks as they finish them. When we complete a unit, we have a whole book showing what we have learned.

My kids love to look back in their books. It is a source of pride for them and it provides great review and fond memories. I think they do their best work knowing that it will be displayed in their books, not just thrown away or forgotten.

It is also so simple. It is easiest to understand if you take a look at them. Here are some samples from our Oklahoma History notebooks, and some from our Nature notebooks.

Oklahoma History Notebooks

Here are some samples of a few of the things we included in our Oklahoma History notebooks. It really is a source of pride for them. When they know it is going in their book and not just getting stuck in a drawer, they seem to work harder at doing their best. It also allows them to see at a glance what all they have learned, and it is like a scrapbook of all of the fun memories we made doing Oklahoma history.

We sketched all of the state symbols and wrote what we learned about each.

We painted headdresses and wrote what we learned about them.

We took photos of larger projects to put in the book. Anything that can't go on a page gets photographed for the notebook. We also made a teepee, a fort and a covered wagon that were photographed.

All reports and papers also go in.

We put in photos of our activities along with a description of the photos.

We did a ton of Oklahoma field trips. For each field trip we take, we fill out a form about the day and glue on a photo.

We write down all of the recipes that we try.

Nature Studies

We put a lot of focus on nature studies. It is great for building curiosity, research, and learning to appreciate our surroundings. In doing nature studies, we can cover writing, language, science, research skills, and art. We put things we learn about nature into our nature notebooks. They are 3-ring binders with page protectors for each page. They end up being kind of a scrapbook of our findings. Here are some samples of the types of things we do for our notebooks. Some of the pictures are a little light, but you can get the idea.