For all other posts related to our Little House on the Prairie Summer see here
A lot of T11’s work this summer will be building up his wood working skills, working on our very own little house. Whilst I know T11 will enjoy the Little House books and the woodworking with his daddy, I also felt he would need something else to get his teeth into. He’s a highly self motivated boy, who likes to be busy. It would have been essential for the settlers on the prairie to have well-developed survival skills and, as our resident Mr Ingalls, we thought T11 should brush up on his. A survival course would be spot on!
Obviously, as we are watching our pennies at the moment an outside course is not possible, so we thought we would make up our own using the books above. To be honest the boy’s book of survival was a bit of fun. The handbook will be the primary book used for this summer. T11 has looked through it and picked a few activities and skills he would like to learn. Some of these we will replicate to the best of our ability, some he will do absolutely according to the book, others he will simply read about. This won’t be the perfect SAS course but it will be something for T11 to learn and grow from. And you never know, we might meet someone in the next few weeks who is skilled in this area who would be willing to teach him. We shall see. It’s amazing how often that happens in our school!
Some of the skills he has chosen will be ones he can teach himself and practice by himself, others will require help. I am so grateful for my husband, who is the children’s staunchest supporter and willing to do anything required of him to help out. He will be working alongside T11, aiding him when necessary, standing back when not required.
T11 has chosen some great projects for his first few weeks which include: making leather twine and twisting it into a rope; making a ladder from wood bits and his homemade rope; learning to start a fire without a match and cooking something simple on his fire. Being an animal lover I think I can safely say he won’t be killing or gutting anything but we have had an offer from the butcher to help out if he does. I shall leave the decision to T11.
I’m hoping amongst all the fun he can learn some real and transferable skills this summer.