Woolly Wonders

I took the boys to our local living history museum again today for a neat program about sheep shearing (and sheep in general) called Woolly Wonders.  The first thing that we got to do was walk out to the barn where the sheep are kept and watch a sheep shearing demonstration.  It was interesting to see how thick the sheep's coat was (and dirty!) as the shearer cut away the kind of rough outer woolly coat to reveal the soft, white, clean wool underneath.  Ethan got the opportunity to pet the sheep before and after it was sheared.

Beginning to shear the sheep and pull away the wool

All the kids crowded around to feel the soft undercoat

There were also very young goats that were walking around in the barn that the kids could pet.  Ethan just loved the baby goats!

He tried to get down eye-to-eye with them

Our next stop was to watch what it looked like for the wool to be spun into thread.  It was neat to see people using authentic "olden days" spinning wheels to make thread.

Ryan enjoyed observing the Woolly Wonders activities

When we returned to the main building, Ethan got to make a lamb craft from real sheep's wool

He also got to try his hand at using these tools with some wool (these tools are used to clean the wool and prep it for the spinning wheel)