We Love the Prairie Primer

Prairie Primer/Little House on the Prairie - Week 4

SAND CREEK MASACRE

PIONEERS AND WESTWARD EXPANSION
Tons of great links at Kidinfo.com
Power Point Presentations
Western Expansion with Mr. Donn
The West by PBS

VIDEOS RELATED TO LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE

Prairie Primer/Little House on the Prairie - Week 3

CHICKEN POX

What Is Chickenpox?
Chickenpox Overview at Web MD
Pictures of Chickenpox

NATIVE AMERICAN FOOD

Foods & Recipes of Native Americans
Guts and Grease: The Diet of Native Americans
Lifestyle of the Plains Indians

TREES

Trees at Enchanted Learning
Tree Lesson Plans at A to Z Teacher Stuff
American Field Guide: PBS Tree Videos
Trees Sprout Classroom Lessons Throughout the Year

FOXES

Foxes at Enchanted Learning
Can Animals Be Nice?
Preschool Fox Activities

BEAVERS

Beavers at Enchanted Learning
Beaver Lesson Plans
Beaver Badminton On-Line Game

MUSKRATS

Muskrats at Enchanted Learning
Facts About Muskrats
More Facts About Muskrats

MINKS

Minks at Wikipedia
Minks at Enchanted Learning
Minks at e-Nature

PANTHERS

Panthers at Enchanted Learning

Prairie Primer/Little House on the Prairie - Week 2

MULES

Grand Canyon Mule Rides
Raising Mules
What Is A Mule?
Mule Characteristics
Mule Facts
Mules at A to Z Animals

MALARIA & MOSQUITOES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Mosquitoes at Enchanted Learning
Stop Malaria - Donate a Mosquito Net

WOLVES

Wolf Printouts at Enchanted Learning
Wolves at National Geographic Magazine
Wolves at Nova
Wolves at the Wild Ones

SNAKES

Snakes at Backyard Nature for Kids
Snake Printouts at Enchanted Learning
Snake Safari at National Geographic Magazine for Kids
Facts About Rattlesnakes

NATIVE AMERICAN LIFESTYLES

Life Style Photos
Native American Facts for Kids
Native American Indian Lesson Plan Links

THE SUN

Sun Printouts at Enchanted Learning
Sun Proof by the CDC
Sun Wise Kids

Prairie Primer/Little House on the Prairie - Week 1

Mustangs

Horse Lesson Booklet
Horse Lesson Plan Resources
Horse Facts
Horses at Kid's Farm
2,029 Horse Lesson Plans
Horses at Enchanted Learning

HOW TO MAKE MOLASSES

Tim Thrift "Making Molasses" from Macrosystem on Vimeo.

NATIVE AMERICANS/OSAGE INDIANS

Activities to Celebrate Native American Heritage!
Osage Nation
Osage Indian Fact Sheet for Kids
Native Americans Graphic Organizer Worksheet with Map
Native American Crafts for Kids
Odell Borg's Native American Flute Lessons

HEALTH HAZARDS OF CHEWING TOBACCO

PRAIRIE ART

Phoenix Gallery

Little House on the Prairie Art Project Ideas

Purple Prairie Art Gallery

SIMPLE MACHINES

Levers at Enchanted Learning
6 Simple Machines
Machines for Kids
Simple Machines at Kid's Connect

BLOOD AND CIRCULATION

Prairie Primer/Little House in the Big Woods - Week 4

California Gold Rush

Women in the Gold Rush

Fun Facts About the Gold Rush

Gold Rush Lesson Plans

Gold - From the Mine To You (Lesson Plans)

The History of Gold is the History of the World

Fun Activities That Teach Children About Gold

The Many Uses of Gold

We are finishing up reading Little House in the Big Woods this week. For the past four weeks, we have been working on activities that will go into a Little House in the Big Woods lapbook. Here's a video that explains how we put it together and I'll post pictures of our finished product soon!

We had a great time with this book and we look forward to reading the next one!

Beautiful Day To Do School Outside!

We had such BeAuTiFuL weather today, we just had to do our schoolwork outside!

Mom's work station :-)

The girlz school desk...

Doing a math project sorting & counting M&M's...

Of course, eating a few, too...

Our Science Curriculum is Apologia Zoology 3. We are learning about habitats and how when animals are camouflaged with their fur or skin, they are harder for prey to find. So we conducted a science experiment camouflaging M&M's in a matching color habitat of construction paper. We discovered the M&M's were more difficult to find if they matched their surroundings.

Then we made Corncob Dolls like what Laura Ingall's used to make and play with.

First we took a corn on the cob...

and took off the husks and silk...

We set the husks and silk aside for later...

Then we scraped off the corn with a sharp knife...

After that, we put the silk on top of the cob for hair, made a face on one of the husks & wrapped it over the "head" and "hair". Then we wrapped them in bandanas. They turned out pretty cute...

The girlz had so much fun playing with the dolls they made. Thank you, God, for this beautiful weather! We love doing school outside :-)

Prairie Primer/Little House in the Big Woods - Week 3

We read this week in Little House in the Big Woods that Ma made homemade cheese so we watched a video on how to make cheese...

We also read that Pa harvested honey from bees so we learned about harvesting honey...

Here's a few more topics we studied about this week...

The Moon

The Moon @ Enchanted Learning
Data Record - Moon Observation
Moon Crossword Puzzle
Shape Book - If I Lived On The Moon

Yellow Jackets

Yellow Jackets at Enchanted Learning
How To Treat a Yellow Jacket Sting
Yellow Jackets at Wikipedia

Ma weaved straw hats for her family so we watched a video of women from Ecuador that have perfected this craft...

How To Make Your Own Straw Hat
Cowboy Straw Hats
Cousin Ed's Straw Hat

OATS

Eat More Oats
Make a Pine Cone Bird Feeder
Quaker Oats (Recipes and More)
Health Benefits of Oats

And last but not least, we learned how to make Johnny cakes, similar to what Ma used to make...

Video on About.com
Pioneer Cooking at Easy Fun School
History of Johnny Cakes

Prairie Primer/Little House in the Big Woods - Week 2

Pa's grandfather made his own maple syrup. Here is a video about making maple syrup...

How To Make Maple Syrup

The Ingalls girls loved to hear Pa playing his fiddle. We listened to fiddle and folk music on pandora.com by searching for "Old Man Tucker" - a favorite song sung by Pa.

Laura and Mary said this prayer every night. It reminds me of the prayer I used to say when I was little, too. My girlz memorized it when they were younger but have since forgotten it so we are re-learning it this week.

Pa kept a loaded gun above the doorway of his house so we studied about gun safety...

The Ingalls family went to a grand party at Pa's father's house where they had a great time eating and dancing. Being city girlz, I had to educate my girlz as to what square dancing was...

Children in pioneer days learned how to knit at a very young age. My girlz know how to crochet but I think they would like to learn how to knit, as well...

SKIN

Prairie Primer/Little House in the Big Woods - Week 1

Pa whittles wood in the Little House in the Big Woods so we watched a video of a man whittling wood and heard about the tools he uses for his craft...

The Ingalls family had a brindle bulldog. So we studied bulldogs...

http://www.loveyourdog.com/bulldog.html

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/dog/Bulldog.shtml

http://www.cartooncritters.com/drawbulldog.htm

http://www.akc.org/breeds/bulldog/index.cfm

This is a video of a bulldog giving birth...

Ma churned her own butter. Here is a video of someone making butter...

Pa had several run-ins with bears so we studied bears & hibernation:

http://www.saskschools.ca/%7Egregory/winter/win2.html

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/Hibernate.shtml

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/painting/Hibernate.shtml

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/bear/

http://atozkidsestore.com/hibernation.html

http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/hibernation.html

The Ingall's lived off the land and grew their own crops so we learned about nutrition and eating healthy. We've been reading Food and You - an American Girl book about making wise food choices. Great book with lots of colorful photos!

The Ingalls girls loved to make dolls from corn husks. Here's directions for making your own...

http://www.ehow.com/how_2057762_make-corn-cob-doll.html

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-thanskgiving-corn-husk-dolls-258084/view/

http://www.michigan.gov/mikids/0,1607,7-163-15941_20571---,00.html

Ma had to preserve much of their food to last them through the cold winters when they couldn't go looking for food. Here are a few sites on food preservation...

http://www.preservefood.com/

http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/fo/Food_preservation

http://www.lucygardens.com/storing-fruit-and-vegetables-preserving-fruit-and-vegetables.html

http://www.kids-cooking-activities.com/kids-cooking-lessons-senior8.html

Our First Week of our 4th Year of Homeschooling ;-)

So the girlz and I just started our first week of our 4th year of homeschooling! We're already having so much fun & we really enjoying learning together. The past 2 years, we've used a curriculum called My Father's World and have really loved it. But this year we are taking a break and are doing Prairie Primer which is based on the Little House on the Prairie books. My girlz looove Little House on the Prairie so I thought this would be a great time to try the Prairie Primer curriculum. We will read one Little House on the Prairie book a month and all of our history, science, art, Bible study and writing will be based around topics from the books.

There are a few things we'll be skipping over that are in the curriculum like blowing up a pig's bladder like a balloon, eating venison and baking cracklings in cornbread! But there's lots of other fun things we'll be doing and we're so excited to get started! Here's a few pics from our first week...

The girlz looove getting new school supplies...

"A" working on handwriting...

Snack time...

We store school work that we want to save in pizza boxes. (They stack easily and are a great size for keeping things! We buy our pizza boxes at Arris' Pizza. I like them because they are white with just a little bit of writing on the top that we can cover with paper. They sell them to me for $3.50 for 6 boxes.) The girlz decorate a new box every year and we put their favorite things in their boxes. Here's "M" decorating her box...

And here's "A's" box. I love the strategically placed stickers...

Painting log cabins (containers that held blackberries we picked earlier this summer)...

Putting together miniature teepees...

While making our teepees, I found some pretty neat Indian music to listen to at pandora.com. You'll be able to find it if you do a search for "Indian flute radio". It's really peaceful and calming to listen to. Fortunately, the girlz stayed awake while it was playing but it almost put me to sleep! ;-)