Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Birthday Party!

In my neverending quest to find inexpensive things to do on weekends if the husband needs to sleep (he works some overnights), I came across one of the Minneapolis public libraries holding a Laura Ingalls Wilder birthday party!! It promised butter churning, black and white photos, period costumes for the kids to try on, fiddlers and square dancing. Seriously, how could one resist?

So we headed out to Brooklyn Park on a glorious 40 degree February day. Alas, there was no butter being churned (that I saw) and there really weren't any costumes for the boys. But a lot of people came dressed up and the girls were *so* cute. I love the bonnets they wore back then!

There were 3 rooms and we ended up in the square dancing room. They had a group of 'pros' and they were teaching the kids the steps and then getting a chance to do a dance to a call. We ended up having to wait until the last group that they worked with but that one was the best! By the time the called dance was going on, the fiddlers had finished their demos and played along with the recording. My kids were really into it too.

Some photos!
An article about Minneapolis being the first library to have a juvenile section.:


Shoes.:


One of the fiddlers.:


Everyone waiting to start learning how to square dance.:

10 comments:

Kelly said...

How fun! I can't wait till my little girl is old enough for me to read the Little House books to her...I adored those as a child.

Spencer Nugent said...

Such a cool idea!

Grace2882 said...

This looks like so much fun.

Wingnut said...

I was a huge Little House fan when I was a girl. A good friend of mine is a writer who wrote the 'prequel' books: The Martha Years and The Charlotte Years. How cool to be able to attend such a birthday party!

Uneekdolldesigns said...

What fun! She is one of my absolute favorite authors, and I have not only her books, but every biography I can find on her, so very interesting!

glitzen said...

Awesome! My girls love her books so much, and their little club does activities like you mentioned. We collect the clothes for dress up, like bonnets, petticoats, etc.
Sounds like such a blast!! I wish our library would do it.

Our Creative Day said...

OMGosh, how FUN!!! I am a big fan, so that would have been a great activity :)

Carrie said...

Fun! Every kiddo should have the opportunity to square dance. Hee! I love the shoes.

Unknown said...

That is so awesome! If my library ever did something like that I would SO be there!! I love the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, I wish so much I could visit some of her homesteads, but I live pretty far from all of them. However, Almanzo's homestead *is* in my home state of NY and it is definitely on my list of places to visit soon! Very cool, thanks for sharing!

Sarah said...

When I was little I wanted to BE Laura Ingalls and the dearest wish of my heart was a sunbonnet to wear hanging down the back of my neck. I LOVE Laura Ingalls Wilder and now with the new D-TV we even get a channel that plays the Little House t.v. series. The library day sounds SO fun. I wish we had something like that around here!