Dream catchers

[Note: I slipped a bit on the blogging so am posting four at once now. Don’t miss the three below this one.]

While out of the country, we’ve been trying to make sure that the kids keep up with important activities from the States. Much to Ben’s chagrin that means doing extra Algebra work. For William, we have been making sure that he keeps up with his violin. For Margaret, it’s making sure that she stays in step with her Brownie troop so that she can move up with them to Junior Girl Scouts next year, and this is what brings us to the subject of dream catchers.

One of the requirements to for moving up to Juniors is that the girls attempt a Junior badge. Her troop has chosen the Native American badge and the requirement that they’ve been working on at their meetings is making dream catchers and learning about the origins or legend behind the dream catcher. Using good ole’ Google again, I was able to locate instructions for how to make one as well as a short blurb on how they came about. I had a feeling that the boys were going to be a bit jealous if Margaret got to make something neat like this, so I bought supplies for each Kumler kid to make one. We had some of the supplies in the house, and everyone was very good about sharing what they had. They turned out pretty authentic looking didn't they? You almost wouldn't know they were made half a world away from their origin.

One of the hardest materials to locate was the feathers. I’m thinking that there may be some sort of import regulations that make feathers difficult to bring in due to the potential for contamination to the existing bird population. That’s just a guess though. The dream catchers turned out very well, and each one is now located in the proper place for sweet dreams.