Happy Birthday!!

No, it's not my birthday, though it was recently. :-)  Today is the birthday of Laura Ingalls Wilder!!   I love Laura Ingalls Wilder!

These are the days I really miss not getting to have a class all day long.  I loved surprising the students as they came into the room to see it decorated with Happy Birthday banners all around.  Of course that made them curious as to whose birthday it was!  The lights would be off and the blinds up to let in some light.  I would normally be dressed up in an amazing big skirt borrowed from one of my friends, a peasant type shirt and even a bonnet that I bought when I went to Pennsylvania!  I even recently bought a slate board that they could practice writing on.  The students would get a kick out of how I would pretend not to know some of the "new fangled" things they were talking about, such as cars and phones, etc.  For recess I would have them stay in the classroom rather than going out with the other classes...which after the initial shock of not being able to go out... they loved!  We would play all different types of colonial games.  I would buy each of the students a set of jacks.  I would teach them how to play jacks, we would play Pick Up Sticks and Jack Straws.  I would also have a Jacob's Ladder and Whirligig toy for them to play with.  They would end up raving about how fun recess was.  Then, in the afternoon we would make Marbled Paper and Churned Butter, I got the ideas from the book Colonial Days by David C. King.  Sometimes we would even do 100 years stories.  The students would write about what it would be like if they lived 100 years ago, then after they would write about what they think it will be like living 100 years from now.  Those are always fun to read!  And of course, we would end our wonderful day with Popcorn and Milk (putting the popcorn in the milk as My Little House Cookbook states Almanzo did), and watching an episode of Little House on the Prairie.  That is always such a fun day!  I only had one student today, so I did have the lights out, we did work on small chalkboards (a great Valentine Target dollar spot find!),

                             

 and we did make some Marbled Paper.
 I love our Little House days, no matter how big or small, it's always fun!  Happy Birthday, Laura!!