Our Author Study of Laura Ingalls Wilder
I must admit...this is my favorite unit of study! I discovered the Little House books in third grade, and have read and reread the entire series many, many times! And now, with the beautiful picture books and easy chapter book adaptations, it's fun to bring to a first grade level! Here are some of the books we read:
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
School Days
Christmas Stories
Laura and Nellie
Adventures of Laura and Jack
Winter Days in the Big Woods
Deer in the Wood
Christmas in the Big Woods
A Little House Birthday
Farmer Boy Birthday
A Little House ABC
A Little House book of Family
A Little House Book of Animals
Dance at Grandpa's
Going to Town
Summertime in the Big Woods
Sugar Snow
Pioneer Girl (Anderson)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Wallner)
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Rookie Biography
These "toddler" books are great for beginning readers!
Hello Laura!
Laura's Garden
Laura's Bedtime
Laura Helps Pa
Happy Birthday, Laura!
Merry Christmas, Laura!
Laura's Little House (lift-the flap book)
Laura's Christmas (lift-the-flap book)
We begin this unit in November and introduce Laura and her family. We focus on both the differences and similiarities of pioneer family life and modern family life. A Venn diagram is a very useful tool for comparisions...we use it quite a bit during this unit! We make individual booklets called "Laura's Family" where we write about each character. We also create a three-way timeline, linking this study to that of the first Thanksgiving. We add pictures to a long sheet of paper which depict activities in the 1600's (Pilgrims), the 1800's (Pioneers) and today. This provides a great visual for the children to compare three time periods. Because Laura spent part of her life in Indian Territory in Kansas, we read excerpts from "Little House on the Prairie" about the Osage Indians and their visits to the Ingalls' family. We even find Native American beads in our room just as Laura and Mary did at an abandoned camp! Then we string them just as they did for Baby Carrie!
Our study next moves onto the subject of food in the pioneer days. We enjoy Wilder's descriptions of food preparations in "Little House in the Big Woods" and get a real taste of butchering time when we sample "pig tails" (ok, hot dogs, but it's fun to pretend!) We also use a white balloon to represent the pig's bladder (ewww!!) that Laura and Mary played with! The story "Deer in the Wood" ends with the girls having a simple supper of bread and butter, and we create an "old days meets new days" snack...bread made the modern way (in a bread machine!) and butter made the old-fashioned way (churning!) We shake the heavy cream in a jar as we chant:
Come butter come!
Come butter come!
Peter standing at the gate
Waiting for a butter cake.
Come butter come!
We even borrow a friend's real churn to examine!
During this unit we work on a "Little House" comparison booklet, where on one side of the page we write about the pioneer way and on the other side we write about the way things are done today. Some things we compare are: food, housing, travel, celebrations and school. Mrs. Tonnessen has a copy of the "real" McGuffey's reader which we love to pore over! So many of the words Laura learned first we know, too! During this time, we watch and compare several episodes of the TV series with the books we've been reading. Our first field trip is to an authentic 1800's gristmill right in our home town! The Cooper Mill is quite close to school, and upon arrival our costumed tour guides
take us through the mill and show us the grinding wheels, the waterwheel, the mill pond and many other sights! Mrs. Tonnessen takes tons of photos, and when they are developed, we sequence them, and each person chooses one to write about. Then they are mounted on a bulletin board to create a wall story of our trip!
At this time of the year we are beginning to work with money, and this lends itself nicely to a math connection in this unit. We discuss the differences in prices of items, and discover that even one penny was considered almost a fortune to the pioneers! We set up Oleson's Mercantile, where items are "sold" according to 1800's prices (imagine...a stove for $8.00!) We then use real coins to make our purchases...we especially like buying the penny candy!
Because Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about her own life, we begin to discuss autobiographies. We compare them with biographies and read some written ABOUT Laura by someone else, including Wallner's "Laura Ingalls Wilder" and Anderson's "Pioneer Girl." Of course, a natural extension of this is to write our OWN autobiography! We begin with a web-shaped graphic organizer, and in each of the five circles we write a fact about ourselves. Some of these include family members, birthplace, favorite place to play, family holiday traditions and favorite thing to wear! We then begin to expand on these thoughts as we write our first draft! Later in the year, after we've grown as writers, we'll revise, edit, rewrite and publish these...they make such a nice keepsake of our first grade year!
Some years a parent has donated a BIG cardboard box to the classroom, which decorate to look like the Little House in the Big Woods, complete with the china woman on the fireplace mantle inside! It becomes a very cozy place to read during center time!
During December, a highlight of our study is Pioneer School day! Mrs. Tonnessen dresses in her prairie finest (sunbonnet and all) and has sunbonnets and aprons for the girls and suspenders and hats for the boys (thanks to past years' parent helpers!) The desks are arranged in rows, the boys separate from the girls, and our generally happy teacher becomes a stern schoolmarm! We practice readin', writin' and cipherin' too! You've never seen our class SO quiet! But it doesn't stay that way for long...later that day we have our Pioneer Party and Frontier Feast! Our class parents help prepare authentic foods from "A Little House Cookbook" including pancakes, maple cakes, oatmeal, sandwiches, popcorn balls and fresh cold milk! There are pioneer games to play, such as Uncle John, Puss in the Corner, Hide the Thimble, checkers, marbles and hopscotch! There's dancing to Pa's fiddle music, too! It's history come to life!
Here's one of our very favorite pioneer songs...Mr. Edwards' favorite, too!
OLD DAN TUCKER
Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man
Washed his face with a frying pan
Combed his hair with a wagon wheel
Died of a toothache in his heel!
Get out the way for Old Dan Tucker
He's too late to get his supper
Supper over and dishes washed
Nothing left but a piece of squash!
(Repeat first verse)
Get out the way for Old Dan Tucker
He's too late to get his supper
Supper's over and dinner's cooking
Old Dan Tucker just stands there looking!
(to hear the tune, visit our Literature Themes page below...click on Frontier Girl and go to Pa's Fiddle Music!)
Although everyone is ready to enjoy their holiday vacation after such a celebration, the children have a long-range assignment to complete. They are given a set of directions on how to make several authentic pioneer toys, such as whirlagigs, jumping jacks, magic wallets and corn husk dolls. Together with their family they create one or more projects, write a report about why they chose it and then are asked to bring it to school in January.
OTHER BOOKS TO USE WITH THIS UNIT:
Dakota Dugout
Mississipi Mud
My Prairie Year
My Prairie Christmas
Only Opal
When I Was Young in the Mountains (Rylant)
My Great-Aunt Arizona
The Ox-Cart Man
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