Ingall's Homestead

I mostly remember watching the show Little House On The Prairie as a kid, rather than reading the books, but we played many hours of "olden times" as children too, so I love sharing the uniqueness of this era with Lorelei. We have read Little House picture books, chapter books and she listens to the CD's of the books during quiet time. (Has probably heard all of them twice.) She could tell you many more of the stories than I can. I love reading her the chapter books and feel like I learn from them too. We are making our way through the chapter books, but have not gotten through all of them yet.

As I mentioned earlier, we live fairly close to the Ingall's homestead. If you aren't familiar with the stories, they moved around quite a bit so there are several locations you can visit, but this is the one they stopped at and Laura taught/married etc. This picture was from a "look out" and we loved climbing up high to see the areas on the map from the top. We (of course) went in # order from the map, and Makin especially liked knowing what number was next with the location.

I loved how they organized this little museum. They had each location the family lived (realizing some are missing now that I'm researching, but you get the idea) with the corresponding book and a few excerpts and pictures from the book. Great visual.

Checking out how small a real wagon is. Was so great.

Looking around a dug out. Not sure how they stayed sane in these, especially in the winter.

This was a hay-roof barn. They were thrilled to find a cat and chickens.

L and M learned to be thankful for a sink so they didn't have to pump the water for me for their chores. :) They actually really had fun pumping the water though. :)

This was a house that they built to be what they consider an exact replica of the Ingall's home. It was amazing to see how small it was yet was considered so much space for them. These pictures are in the addition that was made to the house when Mary learned to play organ at the school of the blind...something like that. They made the add-on for the pump organ. The kids also got to make a button/string toy.

Learning how to do laundry the old-fashioned way was a fun experience. They got to scrub the soap on the washboard, then rub the cloth, then rinse it, put it through the wringer, and then hang it on the line. This was Makin's favorite activity! :)

The horses were also a huge hit. There really weren't a lot of kids there while we were, so they got to get more than their share of turns getting rides. The foal they are petting was only 3 weeks old. The foals and a few horses had free reign over "the prairie" but stayed relatively close to the barn. There was another foal that was a little older too. Lorelei was thrilled she got to drive the cart all on her own, because she did so well the first time with the girl who was helping. It made her feel so special. This was Lorelei's favorite activity.

We rode a big wagon (not realistic size, but fun) over to an old school house. The children who were along got to drive the wagon which was a fun experience. After L's turn she made sure to give Makin the tips the lady told her during his turn.

We got to experience the one-room school house and the woman who spoke there knew a man who actually knew Almanzo Wilder (who Laura married) and said he was "the best horseman there ever was" and she told us how school worked in those days. The kids were so serious in this setting and it was funny to see. They went up in front of the group a couple of times doing some rhymes and such. Their favorite part was ringing the bell.

One more activity was making corn cob dolls/super heros. This ties in with one of the books, and they had fun getting the corn off the cob and then using cloth and yarn to make the doll/hero.

I'm so glad we made the trip and thankful they got this experience!

Thanks for coming with us Nana!