This is our final week of reading Big Woods, chapters 10-13, although we can easily stretch out our time and spend some fun researching the California Gold Rush, and following the great Gold Rush links shared by We Love The Prairie Primer. Or complete the memory section, Psalm 91. How about a crafting week...did you start any special projects to go along with our Little House reading, like a stitched sampler or a lap quilt, maybe your own popsicle or stick built little log cabin or full town set?
Some Bible verses this week include:
Proverbs 22:15, 13:24, 29:15
Hebrews 12:5-11
Proverbs 24:13, 25:16, 25:27
I Peter 3:2
Titus 2:4-5
Proverbs 20:11
Proverbs 10:15, 10:23, 15:21, 26:18-19
Proverbs 17:12...try making your own warning poster about this verse!
Proverbs 17:25, 19:13
Proverbs 9:10-11, 16:6, 10:27, 14:27, 8:13...discuss what the fear of the Lord is :-)
Links for this week:
As always, follow along with We Love The Prairie Primer blog, and here are some links I've shared
Laura has seen and heard quite a few adventures in this first story, hasn't she? All the 'family stories' about life in the Big Woods, the day to day life of family visits, dances, trips to town and more, the loving times of a close-knit family...Laura and her family have provided a wonderful view for us reading her adventures.
Do you have any favorite tales from within the pagesof The Big Woods? Any favorite quotes that sparked your reading time into visions of her quiet but exciting life? We sure did. With the local bear sightings, my children were fixed on the bear tales and life in the Big Woods. Despite the heat wave that we've been under these past weeks, they have had many adventures of their own in our woods. I love living in the country and being so rural. It's the best place for my children to thrive and grow their imaginations and play!
Thankfully, books can open these kinds of adventures for anyone who reads them! City or country, adventures are just waiting to be had!
Some passages we enjoyed:
....The Little House was fairly bursting with good food stored away for the long winter. The pantry and the shed and the cellar were full, and so was the attic. Laura and Mary must play in the house now, for it was cold outdoors and the brown leaves were all falling from the trees. The fire in the cookstove never went out. At night Pa banked it with ashes to keep the coals alive till morning.
The attic was a lovely place to play. The large, round, colored pumpkins made beautiful chairs and tables. The red peppers and the onions dangled overhead. The hams and the venison hung in their paper wrappings, and all the bunches of dried herbs, the spicy herbs for cooking and the bitter herbs for medicine, gave the place a dusty-spicy smell. (pg 19-20)
....Ma began the work that belonged to that day. each day had its own proper work. Ma used to say: Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday. (pg 29)
....Christmas was coming. The little log house was almost buried in snow. Great drifts were banked against the walls and windows, and in the morning when Pa opened the door, there was a wall of snow as high as Laura's head. Pa took the shovel and shoveled it away, and then he shoveled a path to the barn, where the horses and the cows were snug and warm in their stalls.
The days were clear and bright. laura and Mary stood on charis by the window and looked out across the glittering snow at the glittering trees. Snow was piled all along their bare, dark branches, and it sparkled in the sunshine. Icicles hung from the eaves of the house to the snow-banks, great icicles as large at the top as Laura's arm. They were like glass and full of sharp lights. (pg 59-60)
....As soon as the days were warm, Laura and Mary begged to be allowed to run barefoot. At first they might only run around the woodpile and back, in their bare feet. Next day they could run farther, and soon their shoes were oiled and put away and they ran barefoot all day long.
Every night they washed their feet before they went to bed. Under the hems of their skirts their ankles and their feet were as brown as their faces.
They had playhouses under two big oak trees in front of the house. Mary's playhouse was under Mary's tree, and Laura's playhouse was under Laura's tree. The soft grass made a green carpet for them. The leaves were the roofs, and through them could see bits of blue sky.
Pay made a swing of tough bark and hung it to a llarge, low branch of Laura's tree. It was Laura's swing because it was in her tree, but she had to be unselfish and let Mary swing in it whever she wanted to. (pg 156-157)
...The store was full of things to look at. All along one side of it were shelves full of colored prints and calicos. There were beautiful pinks and blues and reds and browns and purples. On the floor along side the plank counters there were kegs of nails, and kegs of round, gray shot, and there were big wooden pails full of candy. There were sacks of salt, and sacks of store sugar.
In the middle of the store was a plow made of shiny wood, with a glittering bright plowshare, and there were steel ax heads, and hammer heads, and sawsn and all kinds of knives -- hunting knives, and skinning knives and butcher knives and jack knives. There were big boots and little boots, big shoes and little shoes.
laura could have looked for weeks and not seen all the things that were in that store. She had not known there were so many things in the world. (pg 167-168)
There were just too many favorite passages to share them all, but these are some of our most favorites.
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