Skip to main content

Activities Inspired by Little House on the Prairie

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books are a favorite in our household. We've read through the first 5 books together several times over the last few years. I usually try to come up with some hands on learning activities to go along with our read alouds. I feel like it helps my kids get more out of our reading. 


Here are some of the activities we've tried while reading Little House on the Prairie:

Make A Log House:
After reading the chapters about Pa building the house, look at some pictures of log homes (Google Images is great for this). Then try making your own "log" house out of Lincoln Logs, popsicle sticks, or even pretzels. We used popsicle sticks. 

Take A Virtual Tour:
While the actual house that Pa built on the Kansas prairie no longer stands, there is a replica of the one room house at the site of the Ingalls family homestead. You can take a short virtual tour here:  The Real Little House on the Prairie.

Prairie Wildflower Activity 
Laura describes the wildflowers of the prairie in various passages throughout the book. Read a few of these passages and pick a flower or two to research.

The wildflowers we chose to study were Larkspur and Goldenrod. We looked at pictures of them on Google Images and read a little about each one. Then we pulled out the paint and paper and tried painting each one.





I also found this great website that gives some information about all the wildflowers described in the Little House books: Wildflowers of the "Little House" Books from Daves Garden.

Learn About Prairie Wildlife: 
The Great Plains of North America are one of only four remaining temperate grasslands in the world. They are home to many interesting animals including coyotes, prairie dogs, pheasants, rabbits, foxes, and more. Spend a day or two learning about temperate grasslands and the wildlife that live there. Here are a few resources to get you started:
-Mammals of the Shortgrass Prairie
-Animals of the Northern Great Plains
-Wildlife of the Great Plains- Video
-Virtual Grassland Biome- from ASU. This one is really cool! Explore the grasslands of North America virtually. 

Learn About The Osage:
The land that Laura's family settled on in Little House on the Prairie, was not actually open for settlement. It belonged to the Osage Nation. The Osage are a Native American tribe that developed along the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys. 

Spend some time learning about the Osage and use this as an opportunity to have a family discussion about westward expansion and the conflicts between white settlers and Native Americans. 

The Osage Nation has some information about their cultural history on their site: https://www.osagenation-nsn.gov/who-we-are/historic-preservation/osage-cultural-history


If you enjoyed this post, check out:

-9 Activities Inspired By On the Banks of Plum Creek

-8 Activities Inspired By Farmer Boy


Follow me on
Facebook
Pinterest
Instagram

Comments

  1. I know this blog post is a couple of years old but I really appreciate the links to the Osage Nation. So important to remember and honor them!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Water Relay Races For Kids

I don't know about your kids, but mine absolutely love games involving water and getting wet in the summer time. In  this post I share 5 of our favorite water relay races to play with friends. These are perfect for birthday parties, homeschool get togethers, and other group events. Sponge Relay: For this relay you will need: - 2 teams of several kids each -2 large sponges -4 small buckets or containers of some sort Divide your participants into 2 teams and have each team line up single file at a predetermined starting place.  Hand out a sponge to the first participant in each line. Set a bucket of water by each team. Set an empty bucket about 20 ft away from each team.  The two empty buckets should be the same size and should have a "fill line" marked half way up. On a count of 3 (or ready set go) the first participant in each line should dip their sponge in the bucket of water, run to the empty bucket, squeeze the water from their spo

STEM Art: 21 STEAM Project Ideas

My kids love STEM projects and we're always looking for ways to add more art to our homeschool days, so I decided I am going to try to dedicate one morning a week this year to STEM art activities. In this post I share some of the ideas we're planning to try, plus a few favorites we've done in the past. What is STEM Education? STEM education is a blended and often hands on approach to teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which are some of today's fastest growing industries. STEM education offers students the opportunity to problem solve and work on real world problems and questions. Sometimes the acronym STEAM is used, to include the arts. Adding art to STEM education encourages creative thinking and problem solving skills. It can also help make the other included subjects more appealing to some students. STEM Art Projects  Penny Spinners-   Learn about centrifugal force and make your own spinning tops with this fun post from Teach Beside Me. Explo

Make Your Own Mineral Identification Kit

One of my family's favorite hobbies is rock hounding. We love collecting and trying to identify neat rock and mineral specimens that we come across. You can put together your own simple kit for identifying rocks and minerals with materials you likely already have around your home. In this post I will explain how to put together your own mineral identification kit and how to use it to identify rocks and minerals you find on your adventures. Making a Rock and Mineral ID Kit Grab yourself a printable Rock and Mineral Journal for recording your observations here:  Printable Rock and Mineral Journal ,  and then gather the following supplies: -A pencil -A coin -An iron nail -A piece of glass (an old pocket mirror works well) -A ceramic tile -A small watertight bottle or container -Some vinegar -A magnet  -A magnifying glass -A dropper (optional)  -Rock and mineral guide (optional)  -A small container or bag to keep it all in Fill the small watertight

Learning About Thailand: Activities and Resources

Thailand ended up being a really fun country to study. There are so many amazing Thai recipes to try and lots of neat buildings and monuments to learn about. My family's favorite part of this unit study was learning about Asian elephants, they are such interesting and intelligent animals!  Basic Information  Thailand is a country in southern Asia. It is boarderd by Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Andaman Sea. The northern region is mountainous while the southern region is hilly and forested. Capital- Bangkok Population- 69.6 million Size- 198,115 square miles Currency- Baht   Type of Government- Constitutional Monarchy National Anthem-  Phleng Chat Thai National Animal- elephant Flag Famous Places The Grand Palace- The Grand Palace in Bangkok was used as the official royal residence of Thailand from 1782 to 1925. It is still used today for ceremonies and state functions. The palace sits on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. It consists of many buildings and pavilions set around a

Learning About The Human Body Part 1: The Skeletal And Muscular Systems

At the end of each school year, I sit down with my daughter to discuss what topics she wants to learn about the next year. One of her science topics she picked to study this year was the human body. Instead of ordering a boxed curriculum set, I decided to put together my own human body unit. In this post I share some of the resources we used for learning about the human skeletal and muscular systems, plus instructions for a couple hands on learning activities. You can find my post about the human respiratory and circulatory systems  here , and my post about the human digestive and nervous systems  here . The Human Skeletal System Our skeletons are the frame of our body. They give us structure, without them our bodies would be limp like noodles. They also provide places for muscles to attach so our bodies can move. Why Does Your Body Need Calcium? Experiment: This is a simple experiment you can do to explore why calcium is important for our bones. You will need: -several clean