Arkansas: Rosie’s Fiddle

Sooooo……  I said there are no real books on Arkansas at my library.  I cheated and said this one way, because the state instrument (that’s right they have one) is a fiddle.

I thought about going back and remaking our Fiddle craft from Banjo Granny.  But, that would be derivative…….  Okay not really, I just didn’t want to do the same thing.



So,  Rosie's Fiddleis about a woman who is the best fiddler in the area.  It’s rumored she’s so good that she could outwit the Devil.  Of course he can’t have that, so he comes and tries to trick her.  She has to outwit and outplay him.

This of course led me to decide to have my kids think about how they would outwit the Devil.

First though, we had a very long talk about how we should never try to outwit the Devil and what to do when faced with temptation, how to handle that.




Not too surprisingly Batman decided he was going to out fight the Devil.  Superman decided to build a machine.  He was on a real machine kick that day……..



Princess was still thinking about designing jewelry earlier, so she decided to make a necklace to trap him with.

I kid you not.

My kids amuse me, frequently.  I’d even say it happens several times a day…….

Arkansas Flag

I was intrigued by the history of the Arkansas flag.  I know all of the states have great histories behind their flag, but this is the first one I was that desperate to find something about the state to find it out.

Here’s what I found out:

 

The large diamond is to represent Arkansas being the only state to produce diamonds.

 

The 25 stars inside of it are because Arkansas is the 25th state to enter the Union.

 

The top star in the middle is because Arkansas was part of the Confederacy.  The lower 3 stars are for France, Spain, and the United States, the other 3 countries that had ruled over Arkansas.  Information from 50 state flags

 

Well, after teaching them all about this, we took the time to design our own flags.  I could tell everyone’s minds weren’t really on the lesson as we went through, so I cut everything short and sent them outside to play.

 

I got Mac playing with Batman, and Robot Boxing from another kid (who’d just spent the last hour telling me all about Robot Wars).  It just went downhill from there, ending with Princess who just sat there and stared outside.

 

There’s some battles you can’t win, so I sent them outside and they played……..

Arkansas: Diamond production

I have to admit, every time I write Arkansas, I think in my AR- KANSAS and then type it.  So, I’m going to be thinking that a lot over the next several posts.

 

Arkansas is one of the states where I had practically no books to speak of.  Actually my first time around I cam up with nothing.  I stopped at their visitor center and BEGGED for information.  They gave me a wonderful set of coloring books for their state symbols and a big huge stack of state maps.  SCORE.  So, let me emphasize again, always visit Welcome Centers when you are traveling, you never know what material they might share with you!

 

Arkansas is the only state in the contiguous United States that has a diamond mine.  I don’t think Alaska or Hawaii have one either, but I know for sure none of the Lower 48 states do.  However, my library didn’t really have any good books on diamonds.

 

So, we talked about diamonds, and then we designed our own jewelry using glitter glue and sequins.

 

I got some interesting designs………

Can you guess which one was made by the 2 year old?

 

Which one was made by Batman?

 

Which one was made by Superman who explained to me “This is a machine jewelry it can……?”

 

Which one Princess made?  And which one was made by my super literal child in the coop?