A Little Bit Of What We've Been Doing

I mentioned earlier that my hubby put together an activity about bartering for me. Each Tuesday I get together with my buddy, Julie, and her two kids, Ahnika and Ty. Prior to our "meeting" we prep our kids by reading different books about a subject and then when we get together we do fun activities for about 90 minutes that relate to what we are studying in history.

For our first meeting we did several things (more to come in future posts) and one of those things was talk about the pros and cons to nomadic and agrarian lifestyles.  Hence the poster.  When I hung the poster on the wall it was blank except for the words "Nomadic" and "Agrarian."  Ya'll know how much my kids like to fill in a wall chart.

We also, during our first meeting, bartered.  That's what all those envelopes are about.  We gave each student an envelope with a job title on the front and something that everyone needed inside the envelope.  The bread is to feed the people, the goat is to provide milk, and the wheat is to feed the goat.  

Everyone needed a roof from the thatcher.

A house from the mason.

Bread from the baker.

A goat from the goatherd.

Doors and windows from the carpenter.

Once everyone had established who they wanted to be and figured out their job in our little society, they started bartering with each other to get everything they needed for a complete house--you can see it pictured below all put together.  The kids had a great time and I think they got the general concept.  Plus, they got a cute little house!

 

Here are my two oldest girls on their second day of the 2012-2013 school year. The younger redhead, Emeline, is pretty thrilled because she is now an official kindergartener. Pretty snazzy.

And here's our history group!  Miriam, Ahnika, Emeline, Ty, Aunt Julie (she's actually my husband's aunt but close enough), Eli, and Cowen.  Good looking crew, if I do say so myself.

And just so you know--my hubby emailed me all the bartering pictures and whatnot, so if you want to barter--leave a comment and I'll email you the files.  Of course, since this is a barter activity, you should probably do something for me . . ..  :)