The Paleo Mama

Homegrown and Handmade

homeschooling

A Day in the Life of “Homeschooling”: From Sheep to Sweater

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My favorite thing about having my kids at home with me is the opportunity to teach them valuable lessons from everyday life. I feel it is so important for them to understand the process of hard work…learning that an egg just doesn’t come from the grocery store…or that a sweater isn’t just as easy as grabbing from Walmart. No, I believe in teaching them the process behind things so that they can fully appreciate what they have.

Lesson from the Land: From Sheep to Sweater – grab your kids and do this with them!

Today’s random lesson came when I saw this picture of a Valais Blacknose Sheep from Switzerland. I called my daughter over to come look at how adorable they are.

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This started the conversation of their wool and how we use their wool to make many, many kinds of clothes. I grabbed my son’s wool sweater and put my new wool socks on and proceeded to tell them the process from sheep to sweater.

Thank God for You Tube! First we talked about sheep and the many uses for them. They have delicious milk, they provide meat, but most of all, people have been using their fur for many, many years. I told them how the farmer let’s their wool grow all year long, but when winter is over, in the spring, he SHEARS them.

“Does it hurt?” asked my daughter.

“Not at all! The farmer has special scissors or clippers that make the job easy. ” Then we watched this video of a farmer shearing his sheep.

They watched it intently for the whole 8 minutes. We watched how carefully he held the sheep and how good the sheep was.

Then we talked about what happens after the sheep is sheared. All the wool is now spun into yarn. Today, it’s easier to do this cause man has machines. But, back in the day, it was a careful process that was all done by hand.

We watched this video of a lady spinning wool into yarn by hand.

We finished off our lesson reading a beautiful book called, “A New Coat for Anna.” I was happy to have this book in our collection and we all snuggled together and read the story. It is about a little girl who needs a new coat. Her mother sets out to find a good farmer with sheep and purchases the wool. She then takes the wool to a lady to spin. Then she takes it to a lady to weave it. And finally she takes the cloth to a tailor to make a special red coat for Anna. The whole process takes a little under a year! It made me realize how much we have forgotten about this whole process of waiting for things to come into season.

If you don’t have the book, you can CLICK HERE to watch a book reading on You Tube.

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It was a wonderful lesson that just randomly happened when we saw a cute little sheep! These opportunities are always available to us…we just need to have a watchful eye for when they pop up!

 

Our Families Retro Approach to Living in a Modern World

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I have a confession to make…

I haven’t worked out in over a month.

Call it burnout or just not having the time anymore. I haven’t walked into a gym, haven’t done pilates, haven’t ran (other than a 5K race I did for Breast Cancer Awareness) in a month. ::GASP:: “What a lazy fatty” you are probably thinking.  However I feel great! I don’t feel like I’ve been a lazy slob the last month.

You see, Americans now have this presumption…

…in order to feel beautiful, you must workout.

…in order to feel healthy, you must workout.

…in order to work off that pastry and chocolate, you must workout.

…in order to feel socially accepted, you must workout.

…in order to feel balance, you must workout.

Here’s a question for you, why were women in the 1950’s more healthy, burned more calories, and had more sex?

Yes, that last part is a fact! Weren’t they just stay-at-home-moms and housewives? How did they do it? They didn’t Crossfit, Pilates, Water Aerobics, or marathon training. They didn’t lift weights in a gym or attend a local spinning class. However, according to studies, they were able to burn close to 1,000 calories a day.

So, how did the post-war, 1950’s, generation of women do it?

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  1. Well, first of all they consumed a WHOLE LOT less calories than we do today. The average 1950 woman consumed around 1800 calories. The average woman today consumes nearly 2,200 calories!
  2. They cooked with REAL fat. They used butter, lard, tallow, duck fat, and real, raw cream.
  3. They cooked their meals from scratch…eating no processed foods.
  4. They ate lots of fresh eggs.
  5. They cooked their meals with lots of fresh vegetables.
  6. They spent 3 hours a day doing housework. This housework consisted of walking to shops to find groceries, prepping and cooking meals, and gardening.
  7. The 1950 woman had to shop around for her groceries. Most the shops were specialty stores (butcher, baker, farmers) so they had to go to several stores to get what they needed. This was a lot of moving and walking for the woman. Nowadays, women drive to one store to get all they need. We also have deep freezers so we can store food. This requires much less walking.
  8. Owning a car was very rare for the average 1950 woman. So, she had to walk to take her kids to school (that is, if she wasn’t homeschooling).
  9. They played with their children MUCH more. Few families had TV to entertain the family, so they couldn’t plop their kids in front of the TV or iPad or Nintendo DS. At night, the family played board games or listened to music.
  10. Most women had gardens to tend to and food to harvest.
  11. The average 1950 housewife was having MUCH MORE SEX than women today because their time wasn’t divided up between their career, children, and socializing like it is today. \
  12. They didn’t have iPads, iPhones, Pinterest, and Facebook to keep up with. If they were in a social club, they walked there.
  13. Their career was being a housewife and they didn’t sit in an office all day.
  14. They didn’t sit on a phone all day. They walked to who they needed to talk to.
  15. Their hobbies were more skilled-involved like knitting, basket weaving, quilting, canning, candlestick making, and painting. Many of our hobbies today are blogging (ahem…I know), reading Kindle, watching your shows on TV, cruising Pinterest, and playing on iPads.

Let’s face it, we just don’t live up to this. I am trying, I’m seriously trying to apply these things…some of these things… to my life. The advancement of technology has changed so incredibly much in the last 20 years. We are a part of Google + circles and Facebook groups without ever meeting anyone or walking to a group meeting. Trust me everyone, I am preaching to the choir here. This is why I have been trying so hard to give up some aspects of technology because I look around and see how women have become so engulfed in it. Kids bring there iPads to playgroups! This is insane!

We workout more but we are fatter. Ironic.

We don’t have to keep up with the times. Our family has made some decisions to remain in THIS time, our time…because life is short and vanishes so quickly.

Here’s some practical ways I have created a more “traditional” lifestyle in our family:

  1. My husband and I got rid of our iPhones about a year ago (read post here on why). It has been the BEST thing we have done for our family.
  2. The kids are allowed to watched (3) 20 minute shows a day, equaling one hour of TV a day.
  3. We are going to be buying a house with acreage so that we can live sustainably and have a homestead.
  4. I am homeschooling my kids because I want them to understand OUR family values (and so many other reasons).
  5. We got rid of cable over a year ago. We use Netflix for the occasional show or movie.
  6. My daughter rarely uses my iPad. I know all the apps and how awesome they are for educational development, but I am old fashioned. I would rather her use her imagination and find something to play with.
  7. Weekends are family time. We go lots of places and discover new things to do outdoors.
  8. We play games in the evenings. We dance. We rough-house. Our evenings do not revolve around the TV.
  9. I have chosen to stay home with the kids instead of pursuing my career. I know that not everyone can afford this choice and I am, by no means, judging. We are blessed that we were able to make this choice.
  10. The kids don’t have many toys. Instead they are forced to create things and do things with each other. We spend lots of time outdoors.

What ways are you incorporating older traditions into your family?