The Dinsmore Homestead

10/22/2017

This is our first year of homeschooling in a Classical Conversations community and we are loving it! CC uses a classical model to present history, geography, english, latin, science and math. What that means for the littlest learners is lots of memorization using songs, dancing, silly voices, games and legos.

But the biggest draw for us was the community aspect. We meet each week with a group of fellow homeschoolers to learn the new material, practice public speaking, learn about the arts, and most importantly (at least in A&R's opinion) have recess! Also, our group goes on a lot of field trips. We are studying American history and geography this year, so it's great to make these things come alive for the kids.

Which brings us to the subject of this week's blog, The Dinsmore Homestead, which is located about 40 minutes from our house. We gathered here on a cool October morning to have the kids experience what life was like for people in the 1860's.

The kids were divided into three groups by age, we were in the youngest group. First, the volunteers showed the kids what children wore in the 1800's. Then we were taken outside and they showed the kids some of the chores they would have been responsible for. Each child got to try their hand at: laundry, beating rugs, grinding coffee, carding wool, grinding pepper, churning butter, sifting flour, and writing on a slate.

The Dinsmore Family repurposed this grind stone as a carriage block.

Next, our group was given a tour of the homestead itself. The tour guide did a great job catering the tour to 5, 6, and 7 year olds. I would love to go back and ask 1000 questions.

The Dinsmore girls were very well educated for women of their era. This was their 14 lb dictionary.

Our third rotation was into the graveyard. I'll be honest, I was paranoid about my kids getting poison ivy, which was growing all over the place, and I didn't give this section of the tour my full attention. We did learn that one of the descendants of the Dinsmore family became the first female senator from the state of Arizona.

Our final rotation was into the kitchen cabin behind the main house. Here the kids were given examples of toys that would have been available to the Dinsmore girls.

We recently finished Farmer Boy. In the book, it describes Almonzo helping his mother make all the candles the family will use for the next year. They described a candle making mold just like this one! It was awesome to show the kids.