Homeschool Field Trip: Conner Prairie

Conner Prairie is an interactive living history museum in Indiana, near Indianapolis. William Conner lived there in the early 1800s, getting stinking rich off of fur trading with the Lenape Indians who lived near there for a time. Conner Prairie includes his house and homestead, a recreated Lenape Indian village, a recreated pioneer-era prairie village, a recreated Indiana village in the process of being raided by Confederate soldiers, and the recreation of an 1859 lighter than air balloon flight, and last week we all went to see it with one of our local homeschool groups.

The barn at the Conner homestead, with sheep and their lambs, goats and their kids, miniature horses and their foals, a few cats, and a calf or two just walking around and waiting to be petted

chopping wood at the prairie village--as a souvenir, the younger kid tried to haul away a chunk of wood as big as her head

playing games

doing chores

lots of stuff to look at

the older kid's two favorite exhibits were the general store, where she spent ages playing with a scale, some weights, and some nails, and the telegraph station, where she spent ages with a telegraph machine and a computer program on Morse code

experimenting with models of helium balloons

and, why yes indeed, riding in a giant helium balloon ourselves

As you can see, it was VERY exciting while the balloon lifted off. Once we were fully aloft, everybody got a good chance to look all around and the ride was quite peaceful:

with, of course, a lovely view

Interesting fact: the original 1859 balloon flight after which this attraction is modeled was not done using helium, nor hot air, but a lighter-than-air gas made from coal byproducts. I also learned that the Conner family sent away to South America for the spices that they used to dye their wool, and that the schoolchildren in that area used soapstone instead of chalk on their tablets, since soapstone was readily available and chalk was not, and when we happened upon a woman who had just finished making a salve good for cuts and burns, I called the older kid over and forced her to let the woman rub it on the knee she had just skinned, and the older kid didn't complain about that knee again for the rest of the day, either because it didn't hurt anymore after the salve or because she was afraid that if she did complain, I'd let another stranger rub weird-smelling crap on it.

the Lenape Indians were happy to let the younger kid use their mortar and pestle

and to let the whole family set off in their dugout canoe

back at the edge of the Conner homestead, the girls were rendered simply giddy at the sight of all that space!

Gift shop purchases=two new quill pen sets (I was supposed to ask my uncle to set aside some feathers for me during pheasant hunting season, but I forgot), one McGuffey's spelling book to add to the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers that my grandmother bought for me as a child, three sticks of candy (Matt ALWAYS buys candy in gift shops!), and one set of Melissa and Doug fuzzy horses.

I handled this field trip differently from most previous ones--instead of having the kids do a lot of prep work beforehand to establish context, we just...went! Although I'd still rather have done some reading and writing about the time period first (for some reason, this long-planned field trip snuck up on me!), I was pleased to see that the kids were so absorbed by the material on offer that I think that they'll be able to draw on it during our summer-long pioneer unit, which we'll begin bright and early next week.

This week, it's all about the International Fair, and the kids' project covering the continent of Africa. And then...a little break!

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Work Plans for the Week of September 8, 2014: Pioneer Indiana and Ancient China

 

MONDAY: Right now, the kids are coloring pictures of Asian dragons (the younger kid's is Chinese; the older kid's is Japanese) while we listen to our The Story of the World chapter on Emperor Qin Shi Huang and his Great Wall and terra cotta army. I'm very excited because on Thursday, we're going to see some real artifacts from this army!

The older kid's math also went excellently well; she was able to use arrays to help her work multi-digit multiplication problems and long division problems. Her Math Mammoth this week is a review of simple division and long division. I think the younger kid will enjoy her math, as well; she'll be graphing her toy animals in preparation for her Math Mammoth units on graphing this week.

First Language Lessons is still tooling along, with sentence diagramming and memorization of the current poem.

My decision to stop making states and capitals memorization fun is working fine so far. The kids each have a US map, and they color in each state as they learn it. This makes it easy to know what they're supposed to have already learned; review is simple, and assigning additional states is also simple. Not fun, necessarily, but simple!

TUESDAY: After much hemming and hawing on my part, Matt convinced me to do the day trip to Conner Prairie on this day. The kids are studying pioneer history, after all, it's not a super long drive, and the admission price certainly can't be beat! As a bonus, there are apparently several enrichment activities that kids can do in the pioneer town, using activity guides similar to the Junior Ranger books that they love so much. This enrichment, which will involve interacting with the characters in various scenarios and doing plenty of critical thinking about pioneer life, will absolutely make the whole day worthwhile, and that's only one section of the place!

WEDNESDAY: I expect Tuesday's trip to be tiring, but I do still want a full school day on this day, so I tried to combine quicker and easier subjects, such as spelling and (hopefully) this day's Math Mammoth, with the fun subject of Girl Scouts. Based on what we did at Conner Prairie, I'll write a list of essay prompts, then ask each kid to choose one to write, edit with my help, and revise.

Aerial silks classes begin again this week; the kids will be happy to get back on the silks!

THURSDAY: We'll be spending this entire day at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. The kids can play in the museum all morning (perhaps visiting the fossil prep lab...), and we plan to visit a couple of the employees from our dig trip, and in the afternoon we have an all-ages homeschool class on the terra cotta army, and then we'll visit the actual terra cotta warriors exhibit. I'm SUPER excited!

FRIDAY: I've written lesson plans for this day, but my guess is that after two full-day field trips and the completion of our four-day school week, I may declare this day a holiday. Even if I decide to muscle through, I did pack this day's schedule with only the quick and easy subjects. The exception is art; Matt plans to give the kids a lesson on logo and commercial design, then have them complete a second draft of their "I Voted" sticker design for a local competition.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: The younger kid has ballet but this is our only organized activity this weekend --yay! We try to do something fun as a family each day, but I'd like to host a housewarming party soon, and so Matt and I are buckling down to get our home in order.

Because even though I adore this house so much and feel as if I've lived here forever, I do admit that it would be even nicer without all my art supplies and the kids' toys on the floor.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Homeschool Field Trip: Conner Prairie

Living history museums are WAY more fun now that my children will consent to speak to other humans. Now they love the play-acting and joining into the spirit of the conceit that's required for one to really experience what a living history museum can offer, and they had a fabulous day at Conner Prairie.

I was the most excited for the children to experience Prairie Town, a recreation of an 1836 small Indiana town, because I considered it the culmination of our pioneer unit study. The kids had worked hard learning about Western Expansion and pioneer life, and thus had the context to make their experience here even more fun. Seriously, they inspected this covered wagon like the trail-hardened wagon engineers that they are:

I took them by the Outfitters Cart to choose a profession--Cook--and it was the best thing that we could possibly have done there, especially as our first stop. Many of the tasks that the profession card held required the kids to engage with the actors, which got them comfortable with doing so and for the rest of the day, they were able to run right up to anyone in period dress and jump right in with questions or thoughts or "help" with whatever that actor was doing:

Even though it was actively raining, like, right then, this gardener was still grateful to have some help at the pump!

carding wool for the hotel owner

and helping her spin some wool

The Cook card also required the kids to practice close observation--they had to find things in the kitchens like this book of recipes--

 --and the prices for various staple goods, including salt, sugar, and baking soda:

Note that this sign doesn't have "baking soda" on it. Can YOU find it?

I also required the kids to ask one "good" question every place we went, and this led to them learning interesting facts such as where the salt is stored, why the doctor's wife doesn't have a butter churn (the doctor gets paid in so much barter that they don't need to keep their own animals), and how much a tin cup costs at the trading post (the trader said that if the younger kid brought him a raccoon skin, he'd give her TWO tin cups!).

The only place that really disappointed me was the Lenape Indian Camp. There was a wetu and a skin drying and a bark boat--

--and a couple of children's games set out, but there were no Lenape. Instead, there was the trading post and another settler-type house, and when the younger kid asked, the trader's wife said that the place was a "trading camp"--not even a real Native American town, then! NOT a good representation of Native American life, especially considering that Indiana has a rich Native American history, some of which we actually do know.

Oh, well. We'll be visiting Prophetstown and Battle Ground later this year, and I can do my own fangirly historical interpretation there myself, if I need to. 

One of the things that I had to continually encourage the kids to do, even after all their practice at Prairetown, was to ask the actors and other historical interpreters their questions. The younger kid would absolutely pepper me with questions, but when I would tell her to ask this or that person instead, she'd be reluctant. The older kid would also have questions, but would then immediately come up with her own guesses at the answers, and be satisfied with that. I absolutely required them, however, if there was a docent in sight, to refer their question to that person, and thankfully, every single docent was always interesting and engaging, and always had an answer (that was always different from the older kid's guesses!). 

The kids have been interested in pottery ever since the younger kid's work on her Girl Scout Brownie Potter badge, and I've been toying with the idea of what at-home pottery we can do (pottery studio memberships aren't super pricey here, honestly, but the kids' classes always overlap extracurriculars that my kids are already involved in). I don't think that we could recreate THIS kiln, necessarily--

 --but this potter--

--was making some pretty great things on a kick wheel just like this one!

There was also map reading--

--and chicken observation-- 

--and over lunch a Come to Jesus entitled "If You Continue to Pitch This Fit, I Will Leave Your Sister with One of My Friends and Drive You Home and You Will Reimburse Me $5 for Your Admission to This Place," inspired by the fact that the older kid had packed only a ton of yogurt and fruit for her own lunch (and no spoon), and couldn't stand the fact that the younger kid had packed a giant, carefully-prepared lunch for herself. The younger kid even let her borrow her plastic spoon when I asked her to, before she'd even used it herself for her own yogurt, so the older kid ate her own yogurt with the spoon, and then THREW THE SPOON AWAY. The younger kid had to spoon up her yogurt with the lid, getting it all over herself in the process, but don't worry--the older kid had ALSO THROWN AWAY THE LAST WET WIPE. 

Lunch was followed by Go Play on the Playground and Don't Talk to Me for a While. Everyone cheered up at the tour of the historical home and garden, however-- 

--and the older kid redeemed herself by asking a million nerdy questions of the weaver, and chasing squirrels out by the cornfield and making her sister laugh.

It was almost the end of the day by the time we reached the Civil War--

--but the kids still got to muster, and witness an encounter between Confederate soldiers and some townspeople, and then we wandered into the field hospital.

It was just the three of us in the field hospital, along with the field medic, but he was stoked to set up shop and show us all of his tools and how he used them. Using the younger kid as his model, he described in great detail what a gunshot to the arm would look like--what it would tear, what it would shatter, how much blood would be spilled, what the level of pain would look like. He pulled out each tool that would be used and explained exactly what each one would do--this one to hold the skin flaps open, this one to clamp onto the lead bullet, this one to cut away excess tissue. He was just describing how the surgeons would simply wipe off the saw before using it to sever another limb, when the younger kid suddenly began to make this loud, high-pitched whining noise. We both turned to look at her, the field medic still holding her arm, just as she started to stagger in his grasp and fall over.

"Oh, no!" I said. "She's going to faint! Is there somewhere she can sit?" The field medic ran outside, where there were a couple of Union soldiers killing time on the porch, and got them to drag a chair up to the porch, which I hauled the younger kid over to and sat her on. One of the soldiers then went inside to grab some of the field bandages to make a cold, wet compress for the younger kid's forehead, while I made her put her head between her knees and the poor field medic just kept apologizing to her, over and over, pausing only to declare that this had never happened to him before.

While the rest of us were distracted with the younger kid, the second Union soldier turned to the older kid, who was just standing there, and asked her, "Are YOU okay?"

"No," I heard her say, and then she started to fall over, too! I ditched the younger kid with the field medic (still patting her and apologizing), and the second Union soldier and I sort of dragged the older kid over to a grassy area next to the porch. I laid her down on the grass, and she immediately rolled over onto her face and just lay there, moaning.

The first Union soldier then reappeared, dripping wet linen bandages in his hands, observed the scene, and said, "NOW what happened?" We were all like, "Ummm... I don't know?" so he said, "Right, I'm calling the medic."

The younger kid was still woozy, so the field medic and the second Union soldier brought her over to the grass, too, and then I found myself, standing on a lawn, my two kids lying moaning at my feet, three grown men in Civil War garb standing facing me, looking absolutely horrified.

Thankfully, it took just a couple of minutes for the medic--the REAL medic--to roll up in his cart. He stepped out, asked what happened, and then the poor field medic started right in about how he was just demonstrating field surgery, and they were really interested, and this had never happened to him before, and so the medic cut him off with "What did you DO to them?"

I explained that the kids both just suddenly felt faint, and the medic, who'd clearly seemed to be expecting chloroform poisoning or something, relaxed into taking the kids' vitals and getting them to sit up, etc.

The younger kid's check was normal and she was feeling a little better, so I left her in the care of the first Union soldier while the second Union soldier and I helped the medic examine the older kid. She wasn't feeling well, of course, and strangers were looking at her and talking to her, which she does NOT like, and even though we were pretty isolated where we were, she knew for a fact that many of her friends were also at Conner Prairie that day, and who knew but that they might also be looking at her. Ten-year-old's worst nightmare, right? So let's just say that she was being... combative. The medic asked her if she was okay.

"NO!" she said.

"Okay, then how do you feel?"

"BORED!" she said.

"Can I check your pulse?"

"NO!" she said.

"What's your name?"

"NO!"

The medic looked up at me in concern, and I know he was thinking that she had an altered mental state, but he asked me, "This is unusual for her, right?"

And I said, "Well...". I didn't really know how to respond, actually. Does my kid *usually* act like an asshole? Mostly not. Is acting like an asshole totally out of character for her? No. Could she be acting like an asshole for absolutely no medical reason right now? Probably, but who wants to admit to a medical professional that their kid is simply just acting like an asshole? Finally, I said, "I think that she's, um, angry right now. This isn't the ideal way she wanted to spend her time in Civil War Town."

Fortunately, her vitals read as okay. No neuro consult needed!

Meanwhile, I could half hear the younger kid having a lovely moment with the first Union soldier. He shared with her his REAL NAME. Wonderful guy.

The medic told the kids that they needed to drink a big glass of water, eat a big dinner, and go to bed early that night, and then he offered us a ride anywhere we wanted to go. It was almost closing time, though, so I asked if he could just take us to our car.

Reader, he could.

The Union soldiers helped get us settled into the medic's buggy, the field medic came over one more time to hug each of the children and tell them that he was sorry (Geez, poor guy!), and then as we motored off, they all waved and hollered "Bye!" at us.

The kids did, indeed drink a ton more water on the way home, they did, indeed eat a big dinner, and you can bet that I did, indeed send them to bed early that night.

Later, as Matt and I hung out and ate our own dinners and watched a movie, I like to think that the field medic and I, cities apart as we were, were both self-medicating ourselves with much hard cider in solidarity from our afternoon.

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Pioneer Study: Morse Code

Remember how fascinated the big kid was by Morse code at Conner Prairie?

Well, we went back home and learned it.

Not all of it, but enough of it for the child to at least be able to call for help--

--and to tell a telegraph pen pal her name (sort of):

She wasn't interested enough in the topic, in the end, to memorize the entire alphabet, or make her own telegraph, or study electricity, or follow any of the other billion or so leads that a child who continued to be inspired by Morse code could follow, but she and her sister and I did enjoy the following resources in our little study:

• many, many youtube videos (for some reason, I really like this old-school Army video)
• this Morse code translator--this is a favorite, because I think that the kid's fascination with Morse code is mainly because she loves listening to it
• many, many books, including:

Because this big kid loves books the most, I like to use books, in particular, to build context and expand her interest in a particular topic. So while we have a couple of books just about Morse code there, I also offered books that included Morse code in with ciphers, codebreaking, and other languages.

It worked, because reading the code books got the kid interested in the Rosetta Stone...

So that's another topic to dive deeply into on another day!

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We Finally Finished the Southern Indiana Ice Cream Trail (and It Only Took 2 Years...)

Indiana murals are always SO weird.

The Southern Indiana Ice Cream Trail was one of our first Pandemic Projects, and just might be the last of the original 2020 projects that we were still working on this summer. 

Like, we completely finished our collective obsessions with charcuterie boards, paint-by-numbers--

--and recreating TikTok recipes. I visited every Girl Scout camp in the state, and the kids ate every kind of Little Debbie that there is. Matt made every one of the 100 Famous Cocktails. One of my kids earned a YouTube Silver Play Award. The other kid grew a lot of strawberries.

But in between all of that and afterwards, ice cream remained part of the family dream. 

We're just barely in Southern Indiana, so almost every ice cream place involved quite a long trek. And for most of them, we also found something scenic to do, whether it was visiting a water wheel, a German cemetery, and a locally famous geologic feature, or uncovering the Masonic roots of historic downtown:

In Salem, we also happened upon an interesting piece of local history. This raid is one of the "lands" of Conner Prairie, a local living history park, and the kids and I have visited 1863 Civil War Journey numerous times (including that one time that led to both kids unconscious on the ground and a security escort out of the park), but it had never occurred to me to check out any of the REAL raid sites!

This ice cream trail was a really great way to spend time together during a pandemic. We got to get out of the house and do a little sightseeing, but it was easy to stay in the fresh air and away from strangers. We got to bring Luna along--

--and the long car rides recreated some of the things I best love about travel, that isolated space for conversations and audiobooks and sibling quarrels, as well as siblings having fun and acting adorable:

The only sad thing about the ice cream trail is that way back in 2020, when we first started it, the prize for completing every stop on the trail was a T-shirt. So OMG you would not even have wanted to see Matt's face when we finally made our final stop a few weeks ago (The Happy Hive in Marengo, although alas, we didn't have time to also go to Marengo Cave like I'd planned, because the younger kid had to work that night. I'm hoping to snooker everyone into visiting the cave with me later this summer), and then Matt finished filling in the forms with our address and T-shirt sizes, sent them in, waited by the mailbox for several more weeks, and then got a package with pictures of ice cream cones all over it in the mail, and...

Sometime in the past two years, the prize switched from T-shirts to caps. Matt is SO sad!

If you see Matt doing errands around town wearing his Discover Southern Indiana Ice Cream Trail cap, can you please tell him that it looks really cool and wow, visiting every stop on the ice cream trail must have been a major accomplishment to earn such an awesome cap? Because I have tried telling him that the real treasure was the friendships we made along the way, but he is not buying it and would way rather have had a T-shirt.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!