The Rag Coat
So, this past week, the kids and I read The Rag Coat. The book mentions coal mining briefly in the beginning and only as a reference to the girl's father and his occupation. But, given the time period of the book, I ran with the coal mining and the kids did several activities dealing with coal mining. First of all, we talked about what it was in general. Then, I got my father-in-law to bring some of his artifacts to show the kids. Ruth got the most out of it, of course, but I was really enjoying learning about mining as well.
The kids learning from Granddad about the miner's lunch box and the safety lamp.
Then, later in the week, we visited a coal mine in eastern PA called Tour-Ed Mine. It was really neat to go down to see how miners would have worked in a deep mine. They had mining equipment from beginning times with pick axes to modern machinery. Most of it was working still and our guide, Frank, ran the working ones for us and the kids. It was a quiet day at the mine, so we had the place to ourselves and the kids got to try their hand at being miners.
Grace, with her hard hat on backwards. She's such a card!
Ruth with the pick ax, trying her hand at mining.
During the week, I also worked up a small doll quilt with Ruthie. Granted, she was pretty little to do much of the work, but she sat along the whole time and watched as I explained our basic quilt and how to make it. She followed me from table to sewing machine and back and at one point I even let her work the iron under extremely close supervision and on a super straight and large piece of fabric. I loved showing her what little I knew! In the end, we had enough material for two quilts-one for her and one for Grace. So, I also stitched the girls' names on the corners of their quilts so they can tell them apart.
I really enjoyed this book and because we didn't get to do some of the things that I would have liked to do and/or talk about, we're going to spend the rest of this week working on it as well.
The kids learning from Granddad about the miner's lunch box and the safety lamp.
Then, later in the week, we visited a coal mine in eastern PA called Tour-Ed Mine. It was really neat to go down to see how miners would have worked in a deep mine. They had mining equipment from beginning times with pick axes to modern machinery. Most of it was working still and our guide, Frank, ran the working ones for us and the kids. It was a quiet day at the mine, so we had the place to ourselves and the kids got to try their hand at being miners.
Grace, with her hard hat on backwards. She's such a card!
Ruth with the pick ax, trying her hand at mining.
During the week, I also worked up a small doll quilt with Ruthie. Granted, she was pretty little to do much of the work, but she sat along the whole time and watched as I explained our basic quilt and how to make it. She followed me from table to sewing machine and back and at one point I even let her work the iron under extremely close supervision and on a super straight and large piece of fabric. I loved showing her what little I knew! In the end, we had enough material for two quilts-one for her and one for Grace. So, I also stitched the girls' names on the corners of their quilts so they can tell them apart.
I really enjoyed this book and because we didn't get to do some of the things that I would have liked to do and/or talk about, we're going to spend the rest of this week working on it as well.
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