Harvesting Fruit

My prairie girls and I harvested our fruit last week from our fruit trees. We had fun picking peaches, figs, and plums. O(4) was an adult Laura and E(1) was her baby girl, Rose. I was ma :)

A Failed Activity

We (my mom, the girls, my niece, and I) attempted to make hand-dipped candles during "Laura" Camp. It didn't go very well. I dipped a candle for about an hour, and it looked like a bendaroo! I think we'll use our wax to make beach sand candles...eventually.

Making "Town Party Lemonade"

During "Laura" Camp, the girls and I had fun making (and drinking!) lemonade. We used the "Town Party Lemonade" recipe from the Little House books website.

The girls loved rolling the lemons before I cut them. They also really liked squeezing the juice from the lemons. O was excited to dissolve the sugar in the water, and this was a fun science lesson. She wants to explore this further at another time (she LOVES to do science experiments that she creates on her own).

Homemade Laundry Soap

My mom, O(4), and my niece(7) made laundry soap while E(1) and I went to the toddler library storytime one morning during "Laura" camp week. (E helped when we got back...she does NOT like to be left out of any activity!)

My mom wrote the ingredients out on a wipe-off board. Then they they grated the soap.


After they grated enough soap, they mixed all of the ingredients together (with close supervision since Borax is poisonous if ingested).


My mom really likes using this laundry soap to wash towels and sheets.

In addition to making soap, the girls made a covered wagon! They draped bedsheets over a 4 post bed and set it up as a covered wagon. When E and I got back from the library, we all went for a ride. I sat in the front and drove the horses. We had a lot of fun playing in the covered wagon!

Shucking Corn

One of our 1st "Laura" Camp activities was shucking corn to make corn cob dolls. We had fun shucking the corn, and the girls loved eating the corn that I cut from the cob for supper. Frozen corn just doesn't compare to fresh!


We left the corn cobs to dry for about a week before trying to make our dolls. O(4) was not pleased when she tried to draw the doll's face. I think we may try this project again and use the husk next time.

In addition to shucking corn, we made apples and onions (Almanzo's favorite dish) for supper. The girls helped wash and cut the apples. I cooked the apples and onions in butter, and they tasted ok. Elliott is really the only one who liked them. However, O put a little apple cider vinegar on them and said that made them better!

Baking Biscuits

Guhguh taught us how to make biscuits during "Laura" Camp. She showed us how to level the flour, and she told us about the difference between liquid and dry measuring cups.

In the interest of being authentic, we used a Mason jar to cut out our biscuits.


I told the girls about how I (along with my sister and cousins) used to help my grandmama bake biscuits, and my favorite part was when grandmama let us have the tiny pieces of leftover dough to make miniature biscuits. The girls got right to work making miniature biscuits. Then we all tasted the raw biscuit dough. This brought back many wonderful memories of time spent with my grandmama and created new memories for the girls with their grandmama :)



While the biscuits baked, we made butter! We poured heavy cream into baby food jars, dropped in a marble, and shook and shook. I learned the hard way that you CAN shake too hard! I was showing the girls how to shake vigorously and the marble broke my jar!

Eventually, we had butter, and it tasted wonderful on the fresh, homemade biscuits! We ate them all within minutes :)

"Laura" Camp

Since O(4) is totally obsessed with "old times" and Little House on the Prairie, I decided to have "Laura" Camp this summer! O and I have been talking about it and planning for months!

For one week this summer, we did a "Laura" activity each day. Since then we've done a couple of "Laura" activities per week. One of the girls' favorite activities was washing clothes on a washboard. They dressed in their prairie clothing and out we went to the front yard to wash clothes!

The struggled with washing one of Elliott's t-shirts, but O loved washing his socks! They were easier for her to handle, and we were all amazed by how white she got them!


Thanks to Guhguh (my mom) for finding the washboard and tub for us to use!!!

The Complete Little House Nine-Book Set