The Great Fire

No no, we didn't have a fire here. But we did have seven children here to discuss the nonfiction book The Great Fire by Jim Murphy for a couple hours today. There had been a snow day on the actual day I was slated to have the original discussion with 8-10 year olds, so we decided to have a make-up session at our house this afternoon.

We pulled watery questions out of a fire bucket, and Sydney even shared an amazing fire cake. Even though Mrs. O'Leary's much-maligned cow really had nothing to do with the Chicago blaze, we did make some lovely luminarias. We guessed the identity of photos of molten artifacts from the Chicago Historical Society too. Although the discussion was primarily for older kids, Dever and Fiona were able to participate a little as well. It was a more somber topic than we usually discuss at our homeschool book discussion group, and not our usual venue, but we had a truly enjoyable time.

These photos show the kids either posing with a conflagration cake (made by Sydney and decorated by Fiona-- good idea, Kathleen!) or being filched by Nora. We had sent her inside from the backyard to grab something; but the something we were imagining was not the library stool which enabled her to eat all the M&Ms off the other cake!