Abraham Lincoln

We are currently in the middle of a 9 week study including Abe, Slavery, Civil War, and Pioneers! It's been a fun study so far, difficult to decide what really needs included. I think each of these topics could easily have 9 weeks on their own. We are doing what we can and trying to cover the main topics.

We've read many books about Abraham Lincoln. If you've never heard of the "If you grew up with" series of books I would urge you to check them out. They give a lot of information that is current for the time period.
We learned in that book ("If You Grew Up With Abraham Lincoln") that until Abe's father remarried Sarah Bush Johnston he slept on a mattress of corn husks. I saved my corn husks this year from doing corn so we could see what they were like to sleep on.

To be real and honest let me share how this went down. =) We did our corn in early August. If you've ever done corn or any produce you know how it can attract fruit flies, your corn may have worms in it, so you really don't want to leave the husks in your house. We from time to time have mice in our garage, thankfully we've not had them in our house. (I hope that day doesn't come!!!) So we try to be careful what we put in the garage. We don't want to encourage those little mice to make beds and stay! So I asked my hubby if I should put the husks in the garage to dry out, he said no, because it might bring mice in. So I put them out on the deck in a paper bag. I knew that wasn't the best option, but I didn't know what to do with them.
So fast forward to October when we are studying Abe...I knew the corn husks would be a little less than perfect condition. So we dumped them out by our burn pit and then put paper bags down before we laid on them. Gross, yes. The kids didn't seem to mind it at all. In fact they all said it was a very comfortable bed, they wouldn't have minded sleeping on it!

The husks before we put bags down.

Brie trying it out!

Zeke's turn.


Titus trying it out!

I will be sharing some more things soon!