Winter reading

With stormy weather around due to winter, this can be a good time to read together as a family. If you have kids under 10, you might try reading "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder together. Most of your readers will be able to take turns, which increases the fun and improves reading skills.

As you go through the chapters, take some time to contrast their life style with yours. Act out some of the activities. Try making some of the foods mentioned. At a minimum, it gets us away from technology as a constant companion and we might find that we can have fun together. After reading the chapter where Pa is telling stories from his childhood, why not try to do the same? My daughter always loved stories from my childhood and I'm sure yours will too.

Once we discovered the Little House books, my sisters and I acted them out constantly. We were often pioneers, living in a little cabin (often the living room as it had a fireplace). You're not too old to play these with the kids-having them direct you in the story line. Encourage them too. Becoming more aware of the possibilities of imagination can help us promote those skills-and this might encourage innovation in later life as well.

Another benefit is to see how labor intensive daily life was. It is much easier for us to clean the house-we don't usually have to make the soap first-or do laundry. Have your kids try washing something like jeans in the kitchen sink. (They scour the sink well). The washing isn't too hard, unless they are very dirty, but the wringing out is quite difficult. Hanging them to dry will also take a long time. Activities like this can help us appreciate our many blessings and be fun to do together. A side benefit might be a little greater care not to make our clothes so dirty, but that isn't too likely.