May Prairie Primer: "The First Four Years" - And It Is Finished!

 With bittersweet feelings, I write my last Prairie Primer co-op post for this year. I plan on doing this unit study again when Hailey is old enough to read the books for herself and Josiah can participate in all the writing activities that we skipped this time around. One thing I can say, is we are Prairie Primer Fans!

              Hailey attempting to recite Psalm 46.

                                                My friend, Cora, with her charge.

Painting their own tic tac toe stones to use outdoors.

This was such a fun exercise! I helped Hailey answer questions about what she learned this year and what her favorite and least favorite things about the Prairie Primer where. It was so fun to hear what my kids wrote and the things that made an impression on them.

Sunny (one of the involved grandmothers) helped Josiah with his Prairie Primer paper.

This is a new way to make lemonade (or should I say an old way?). You soak lemons in warm water, then roll them in a towel until they feel soft, without breaking the skin.

                                             The little girls rolling their lemons.

Getting those lemons soft!

Josiah had a turn, too.

After the lemons were soft, Stephanie, sliced and layered them in a bowl and sprinkled sugar on them. After sitting for 30 minutes, she added water and strained it. Yummy lemonade!

 Below, Beth is giving out the final Trivia Questions. This was always a favorite for the kids. Also, not pictured (I wish we would have got a video of it) is everyone singing while I played, "Happy Land" on the fiddle. What fun song to fiddle to.

I tried making bird's nest pudding. Josiah helped me peel and core all the apples which took quite awhile. This is basically a baked apple dish with "pudding" batter over it. I thought it was delicious. You pour sweetened heavy cream with nutmeg over the top of each slice as served.

Josiah did a presentation on his own about St. Bernards and their history as rescue dogs. I let him do it completely on his own. Josiah is getting to be a confident presenter, as are all the children.

My beautiful fellow school marms, Beth and Cora. Love this pic in sepia

Standing in line (ladies first), and praying before we dig into the delicious food.

Tomatoes with cream and sugar, half a bird's nest pudding piece, lettuce with sugar and vinegar, baked spare ribs and potato salad. Plus we had fresh lemonade to drink.

Only group picture we have of all of us. Sooo glad we took the time to do this. The kids have made some really good friends and us ladies have become very close over this past year.

A bittersweet co-op day for sure. I'm going to miss it so much. It has been a privilege and honor to have worked with some amazing ladies this year (Beth, Cora, Stephanie and Christine). I have learned so much and will be forever changed by this experience. I did the math and believe we tried around 60 recipes between us moms. 80 presentations were done for the group between our five families! We did around 20 different pioneer-related arts and crafts together and I don't know how many activities. That isn't including all the scripture we memorized, as well as memorizing states and capitals, and presidential reviews, poems, etc... And learned 20 different old-time songs. I would definitely recommend doing this unit study with a co-op if you can :) We only met twice a month and managed to get all this accomplished. We've made friends for life. Thank you, Margie Gray, for writing this study. The memories will last a lifetime!