How Mary and Laura made butter...

CC license for wooden butter churn
diagram. This is a fancier churn that 
shows and additional bucket exten-
sion. But there were also versions of
this model without the bucket 
attached. See our water barrel to 
observe how these look and are
made in real-life.

       The most historically prominent types of butter churns are the plunge churn, which is a container, usually made out of wood, where the butter-making action is created by moving in a vertical motion a staff that is inserted into the top.  The staff used in the churn is known as the dash, dasher-staff, churn-staff, churning-stick, plunger, plumper, or kirn-staff.

       In the first Little House book, Little House in The Big Woods, we read about how Laura and Mary helped their Ma make homemade butter inside of a churn. Here, I've included a wooden butter churn craft for your Pioneer dolls to play house with. Don't forget to add a shredded carrot to the butter in order to turn it extra yellow!

Supply List:

• Popsicle sticks
• natural looking twine 
• wire (optional)
• brown acrylic paints
• paper-mache pulp (for butter inside the churn)
• chop stick or dowel rod
• white school glue
• hot glue and hot glue gun (optional)
• scrap cardboard
• paper towel tube or toilet paper tube

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. I used a toilet paper tube for the following craft and made it a bit sturdier by laying several of these tubes together with glue. However, you may use any cardboard tube you have on hand for your doll's butter churn and some tubes are sturdy enough not to layer them together. If you want your churn to have similar proportions to mine it will measure 5 1/2 inches tall with a opening that is 2 inches circumference. 
2. Attach the wooden craft sticks lengthwise to make the wooden slats of the doll butter churn look authentic. You can do this with white school glue and then wrap the sticks temporarily with the masking tape in order to hold the wooden sticks in place white these dry. Then you can remove the tape later. Alternatively, you may prefer to hot glue the sticks in place so that your project goes quickly.
3. I also wrapped the churn with additional thin cardboard pieces around the craft sticks and painted these to look like metal bands. 
4. Don't forget to plug the bottom of the churn with a round piece of cardboard and glue. Just trace around the faux churn with a pencil on top of cardboard to get the exact shape of the opening before cutting the bottom out. Attach it with glue.
5. You can see from the photos that I cut a dowel rod to act as the churning stick. If you are teaching this craft to a larger group of kids, chop sticks are better alternatives because these can be recycled and they are already cut.
6. The dowel fits through a faux wooden lid. This was cut from cardboard to fit the inner circumference of the tube. It doesn't fall inside at an awkward tilt because I took a narrow, sturdy strip of cardboard and attached this about 1/2 inch from the lip of the tube's opening. Do this with glue and masking tape. You can see this slightly lifted edge in the center photo just below. 
7. You will also need to cut a hole in the lid for the churning stick to fit through. This is an elaboration that is unnecessary when teaching little ones in a crowd. Ultimately, they will probably loose detailed pieces like these during play and the churn is a cute craft without all of the additional details anyway. 
8. I chose to further alter the surface of this butter churn toy with more painting on the outside. If you have wood print papers these may also be used to decorate the toy.
9. Apply lumps of paper mache pulp smeared to the inside surface of the tube and paint this surface yellow in order to fashion a churn with processed butter included. If you do this, do not glue an "agitator" to the end of your churning stick or "dash." Because the paper pulp will inevitably be chipped away by over-active imaginations. I chose to include butter details because our doll churn is put on display in the doll house. But it would be much more efficient to exclude this detail when children wish to play house with it instead.

Left, you can see the toy butter churn finished without further painting and it looks very cute

 at this stage. Some of you may choose to go no further in the altering of the surface. 

Center, here I am showing the interior of my doll' butter churn. You can see the raised 

edge just  inside the tube. This is made in order to keep the lid from being plunged 

further down the  tube while kids mimic the churning process, pumping the churn dash up 

and down to make  butter, of course. Right, the bottom of the churn is made of cardboard.

Left, the dash or churning stick balanced on the edge of the churn prior to painting.
Center, painted paper mache pulp was used to add faux butter to the interior lining.
Right, our dash doesn't include an agitator at it's bottom so that the stick may still
be moved up and down during play.

Dairy Day Butter Making from the Littleton Museum...