Kids Crafts for Prairie Living
Popular conceptions about prairie living are associated with the "Little House" book series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Wilder wrote books for children about the pioneer life she experienced in the 1870s and 1880s, growing up in Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota. Pioneer children and their families lived a simple, self-sufficient life on the prairie, growing and preserving food, making necessities that could not be purchased and occupying themselves with crafts and handiwork around the fire at night.
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Sewing
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By the age of 7 or 8, most children are ready to learn basic hand-sewing skills that will enable them to stitch some felt mittens or mend their own clothes by repairing a split seam or replacing a button. Learning how to sew can begin with threading a large, blunt needle with yarn and sewing a drawstring coin purse or a bookmark. More advanced projects might include making simple dolls stuffed with cotton or straw, an apron or a pillow.
Knitting
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Knitting a scarf is a good first knitting project for children. Spinning and knitting were frontier activities supported by large sheep-herding operations in southern Montana and in Wichita, Kansas, in the 1870s and 1880s. Teaching today's children aged 6 and older how to knit involves patience and a step-by-step approach, but soon they will be ready to work on a simple project such as a scarf. Basic skills include making a slip knot, casting on and binding off, knitting and purling stitches, holding needles and yarn correctly, increasing and decreasing stitches and weaving in the ends of a project.
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Soap Making
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Soap molds and dye make it easy for children to craft homemade soap. Though there were a few commercial soap makers, soap making in the colonial and pioneer periods involved boiling down animal fat into oil and mixing it with a lye solution made from pouring water through ashes. Thankfully, soap making methods have become easier and ingredients have changed. Children can make a batch of soap in less than two hours with little more than glycerin, soap dye, candy or soap molds and a microwave.
Woodworking: Build a Birdhouse
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Birdhouses are a cheerful and instructional addition to a backyard. Pioneers used wood to build houses, fencing and wagons. On a smaller scale, they enjoyed the craft of woodworking for making toys and household implements. Making a birdhouse is a good beginning woodworking project for a child. It's not hard to design an original birdhouse or find a pattern, and completing the project requires basic tools. With a little research, you and your child can build a birdhouse particularly suited to bird species native to your area. Then you will both have the pleasure of watching the new inhabitants move in and make themselves at home.
Candle Making
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You can make candles with children without melting wax. Candles supplied the only light available to prairie children if they wanted to read after dark. Children today can make beeswax candles risk-free with sheets of beeswax rolled around a wick. They can also use the old-fashioned dipping technique using melted wax, under the close supervision of adults.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit western wagon image by maiky911 from Fotolia.com Knitting girl is very concentrated image by Ivonne Wierink from Fotolia.com soap 5 image by Smalik from Fotolia.com birdhouses image by Igor Zhorov from Fotolia.com bougie en vraie cire d'abeille image by Unclesam from Fotolia.com
