Levi Coffin house

We took our Indiana history field trip the the Levi Coffin house on Saturday.  Levi Coffin was very active in the underground railroad.  His house was considered Grand Central Station and he was considered the stationmaster.  His family was a quaker family and they hid as many as 17 slaves at one time.  The tour guide said he wrote in his book that he estimated 1,000 slaves had been through his doors.  Here are some pictures of the house:

Picture of Levi Coffin

Mammy's Bench - used for rocking a baby while knitting or sewing.  The "gate" can be lifted off for more seating space.  (not sure I spelled Mammy correctly.)

Slaves wooden shoes

The door leading to the hiding place.  They would then place a piece of furniture in front of the door to hide the space.

Picture inside the space.  With the flash on, it looks light, but it was actually very dark in there - and cold.

Overall, it was an interesting tour about the Quakers, Levi Coffin and life at that time, in general as far has how they cooked and spent their time.

Indiana history

Several entries ago, I promised pictures of Alex's Indiana history notebook that he is doing with the rest of the 4th graders in our co-op.  Here are pictures of what they have studied so far.

This is just the general stuff about Indiana - location, state bird, state flower, state tree, state motto (The Crossroads of America), state flag and a county map.

Then we moved on to Indians and the Mounds builders.  I still plan to add pictures for our field trips.  We left pages with pockets for brochures that we pick up during our field trips.

This is all about La Salle, the French explorer, and his journeys that brought him to Indiana (South Bend - actually, he named South Bend). 

More information about Indians - Little Turtle and Tecumseh and their battles with William Henry Harrison in the Battle of Tippecanoe.  The history behind Little Turtle signing the peace agreement that the Miami Indians would no longer fight the whites for land - an agreement that was kept by Little Turtle until his death.  However, Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet were not Miami, so they fought and lost.  Then moving to the Battle of Mississenewa, which was an attempt to remove the Indians from along the river, which was a major path of communication between American forts. 

Another pocket for our field trip.

Just recently, we talked about pioneer life - what their houses were made of, how hard they worked to feed and clothe themselves, and what kind of schools the children attended.  Alex wrote as if he were a pioneer child writing in his journal - what kinds of things he would've done during the day.   Some things were: chores, play games like tag and hide & seek, sing and go to bed.

Lastly, we talked about Levi Coffin, the president of the Underground Railroad.  As a young boy from North Carolina, he saw slaves being treated unfairly.  When he got married and had a child, he decided he did not want his child growing up in a slave community, so he moved to Indiana.  The house he moved into was right along the way of slave escape and it had rooms upstairs with no windows, so his house became a stop along the Underground Railroad.  Saturday, we are going to visit the house, so look for pictures!

Pumpkin field trip

We went to Minnetrista today for a field trip on pumpkins.  The boys used their senses to explore the pumpkin - feel the smoothness of the outside, feel the sliminess of the inside, taste the pumpkin meat (raw and in a cookie), and taste the pumpkin seeds (raw and cooked).

We learned the life cycle of the pumpkin - seed, to leaf, to flower, to pumpkin.  They made a vine with pictures of each of these items glued to it and made a pumpkin bag to keep it in.

Then we learned the differences between a pumpkin and a squash and gourd.

Finally, we got to see a real pumpkin vine and the boys each picked a pumpkin to bring home.

Leah's Pony lapbook

The book Leah's Pony is about a girl's family who lived at the time of the depression in a dust bowl state.  It talks about the trials of a farmer at that time - dust storms, grasshoppers eating their crops, no money to pay the bank so they had to auction their belongings.  We checked out a book from the library about the dust bowl and it had pictures taken of some storms.  We really spent some time discussing the depression and being resourceful - re-using things that we might normally throw away.  Here are pictures of their lapbooks.

As you can see, we talked about grasshoppers, sacrifice, alliteration, plants, wind, and their copywork was a poem about wind.  I don't think you can read the poem, so here it is:

Who has seen the wind?  Neither I nor you.

But when the leaves hang trembling low, the wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?  Neither you nor I.

But when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.

Birds

For Zoology this week, we have been studying nests.  The experiment asked students to try building their own nest out of mud, grass, leaves, weeds, etc.  Then we would try to pick it up to see if it held together. 

If you look closely at the finished product, you will see an awful lot of mud.  The boys started with a glob of mud, then added in the grass, straw, leaves, etc.  When the nests dried, they held together, but, boy were they ever heavy for nests!!

Alex's nest above, and Nicolas's below.

I guess what matters most is that they had fun.  What boy doesn't have fun playing in the mud?

Leah's Pony & auction

We read Leah's Pony at co-op today about a girl and her family who, in order to pay the bank for a loan, went through an auction of all their property.  The girl sold her pony in order to buy her dad's tractor so he could continue to farm.  She bought it for $1.  Then their neighbors purchased other items from the farm for under $1 and gave the items back to the family.  We had an auctioneer visit with us who explained that this kind of thing still happens around here.  Each child brought in a toy to give away and we held our own auction with monopoly money.  Each child went home with something (or many things.)  If something was not getting a bid, the auctioneer did what he does at other auctions and added more things to gain a bid.  It was a fun learning experience for the kids.

Our auctioneer, Bob.

Mississinewa 1812 battle re-enactment

As part of our Indiana History field trip, we attended the Mississinewa battle re-enactment.  There is an Indian Camp, and British Military Camp an American Military camp, and fur traders and trappers along the river.  We listened to Soft Shell Turtle tell stories and sing songs.

We visited the Indian camp and went along the river to some of the fur traders tents.  Here is a picture of a beaver skin.

Then we sat to watch the battle re-enactment.

After the battle, we visited the British military camp where some soldiers explained to us how doctors treated wounds and showed us their guns and explained how they are loaded and shot.

Before we left for the day, we stopped at another French fur trader.  He explained that the French people became friends with the Indians in order to trade.  The French men also married Indian women - to help with trading.

He had many furs hanging behind him - bobcat, raccoon, squirrel, beaver, and deer.  We also in the course of walking around saw mink fur.

Central Indiana Ethanol Plant

We hadn't really planned this as a school field trip.  Our church planned a tour of the new ethanol plant in our area.  The boys went along.  Most of what they said was not presented in a kid friendly manner, but the boys picked up some of what is done at the plant.  Here are some pictures:

Nature Funny Faces

Thanks to my friend, Ami, the boys were able to keep busy constructively for a little while this afternoon after school.  We went on a little nature walk, picking up anything nature, without the boys knowing what we were going to do with them.  When we got back to the house, I had 2 chalk circles drawn on the sidewalk and told them to use their nature items to make a face.  After they what they were supposed to do, they went out into the yard to pick up other items to make their faces better. 

Here are the results:

Alex's faces

Nicolas's faces:

And Mom's face: