I grew up on a farm 40 miles from De Smet, South Dakota, one of the settings for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series. I always loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. Those books naturally became an important part of our homeschooling.
In fact, the books were woven throughout our homeschooling for years. We read aloud through the entire series more than once. And Will and Christina used to say that I used Little House on the Prairie books as examples for almost anything (such as the beauty of showing gratitude for the simplest presents).
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).
Even if Little House on the Prairie isn’t such an important part of your homeschool, it’s a great topic for a multi-age unit study during the summer as well as any time during the school year. We still enjoy Little House on the Prairie activities even though my kids are adults now!
Note: There are now “My First Little House Books.” They’re fabulous for preschoolers and beginning readers. I love the character values of the Little House series, and it’s wonderful for children to fall in love with Laura Ingalls Wilder books at an early age.
Because we lived in South Dakota until Will was 11 and Christina was 6, we had easy access to lots of museums and activities related to pioneer life on the prairie. In 1989, Will and I even rode a few miles in an actual covered wagon in the South Dakota Centennial wagon train.
If you’re ever able to visit De Smet, South Dakota, there are Laura Ingalls Wilder historic homes, Ingalls homestead, Loftus store, Laura Ingalls Wilder pageant (three weekends in July), De Smet Depot Museum, and Harvey Dunn School. With my parents, we attended The Long Winter pageant in 2002 and By the Shores of Silver Lake on July 8 this year.
Christina, 12, Deb, and Will, 17, on a wagon ride at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant, July 2002.
Little House on the Prairie Curriculums You Can Purchase
October 2015 Update: Little House on the Prairie: The Legacy of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a one-hour documentary that gives the behind-the-scenes, true-life story of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
On the Set of the Little House on the Prairie Documentary
I was given a copy of the documentary. I loved learning more about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the creation of the book series. A Little House on the Prairie Unit Study would definitely benefit by adding the documentary to the unit.
The documentary emphasizes the books’ “universal themes of courage, hope, and love.” I enjoyed learning new information such as that Laura insisted on keeping an account of Mary’s blindness in the the book By the Shores of Silver Lake because “Mary’s blindness transformed her adolescence. It transformed the family. It also added momentum to the idea of facing adversities with courage and strength.” And I appreciated the segment after “the long winter” where Laura gives the message that “gratitude for deliverance outweighs anger over hardship.” Such important messages!
Little House on the Prairie Documentary
You can learn more about the documentary here. Buy the documentary through Amazon.
For ideas of activities, we used the KONOS Character Curriculum Volume III unit on Resourcefulness: Frontier Life.
There’s also The Prairie Primer: Literature Based Unit Studies Utilizing the “Little House” Series.
Laura’s Prairie House has information on inexpensive resources.
But you can create your own unit study with just the Little House books and the resources available online.
Little House on the Prairie Free Online Resources
Washing Clothes on a Washboard (Photo from Chasing Cheerios)
Chasing Cheerios has lots of wonderful ideas that work well for preschoolers for a summer “Laura” Camp (the photo is from the first “Laura” Camp post).
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant, De Smet, South Dakota, July 8, 2011
Homeschool Share has a Little House on the Prairie Story Study Lapbook.
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum has a Laura Ingalls Wilder Website and Laura Ingalls Wilder Teaching Unit. For younger children, check out the online One, Two, Threes of Pioneer Life: A Little House Counting Book.
Christina (6, on right) and friend at a pioneer-inspired homeschool event, 1996.
A to Z Home’s Cool Homeschooling has lots of resources for a Little House Unit Study.
Mothering has a forum discussion with resources for a Little House on the Prairie Unit Study.
School @ Home has a Little House on the Prairie Lesson Plan.
Mrs. Smith’s Fifth Grade has Little House on the Prairie: An Adventure (for 4th grade).
National Archives has Teaching With Documents: Little House in the Census – Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Cape Girardeau Public Schools has links with discussion questions, author sites, and activities for Little House on the Prairie.
Simply Necessary tells about their Little House on the Prairie Lapbook Unit Study.
Daffodil Lane tells about their Homeschool Laura Ingalls – Little House Unit Week
Christina, 21, and Will, 26, as Mary and Pa at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant, July 2011.
LauraIngallsWilder.com has more information about Little House books as well as lots of homesite links.
Laura-Ingalls-Wilder.com has a shop with CDs of the Little House music that can be purchased (see comment below from Kristi). It also has a free multi-media page with videos and the NPR special Arkansas Traveler: Little House Music and Tales.
Little House on the Prairie is the official website. They’ve developed fun activities and resources in their lifestyle and learning sections that will appeal to homeschoolers.
Easy Fun School has an Index of Lesson Activities to go with ‘Little House on the Prairie’ Books.
Little House Books has more information about the Little House book series, and it also has sections of fun and games and ideas for teachers and librarians.
Sarah Tennant has Little House on the Prairie Art Project Ideas at suite.io
Little House on the Prairie Activities (Photo from Wordplayhouse)
UPDATE: Wordplayhouse tells about their complete Little House on the Prairie unit study starting with “chapter 1” and linking to “chapter 2” (photo) of their study. Cheerios Underfoot and Craft Phesine have Little House peg dolls.
I have a post about Laura Ingalls Wilder and a Montessori washboard activity.
I also have a post with free pioneer printables and Montessori-inspired pioneer activities.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with Little House on the Prairie! 🙂
Authentic Child-Size Washboard from Montessori Services
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy! I’m also one of the coauthors of the book Learn with Play – 150+ Activities for Year-round Fun & Learning!
The Montessori at Home! eBook and Montessori at Home! eBook and Materials Bundle are AMAZING resources! You can learn more about them here. Buy them in the Living Montessori Now shop.
If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook pagewhere you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), Twitter (blog posts by me and others along with the Parent/Teacher Daily and other interesting information), and Google+ (post updates and Montessori Community). You can find me on bloglovin’, Instagram, and YouTube now, too.
And don’t forget one of the best ways to follow me by signing up for my weekly newsletter. You’ll get two awesome freebies (and a monthly subscriber freebie) in the process!
May be linked to Practical Mondays Link Up, LouLou Girls, Tasty Tuesdays, A Little Bird Told Me Linky Party, Link-ups at Squishable Baby, Sharing Saturday
I was so glad to see your tweet about this post. Yesterday I told my daughter that I wanted her to start reading this series so we could do a unit on Little House–how neat that this came across today! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Michelle! I’m glad the timing was right! I hope your daughter enjoys Little House on the Prairie! 🙂
Wow, how blessed to be able to have grown up where you have! I LOVED Little House on the Prairie growing up, and my own kids do just as much. They have read all of the books, Rose Years and other series as well, and also have a large DVD set of episodes. The stories of Little House has opened the way for many valuable and enjoyable conversations in our family. 🙂
Thanks, Laura! I was very blessed to grow up in a loving home in a friendly, close-knit community! I love how much your family does with Little House on the Prairie … it’s such a great influence for kids! 🙂
Thanks for this post! We did Little House in the Big Woods this past winter and I’m trying to plan out Little House on the Prairie for this coming winter. These links are a big help!
Thanks for your comment, Eddie! Fun unit studies you’re doing! I’m glad I was able to help! 🙂
I LOVED the Little House on the Prairie books as a kid and have since bought all the additional books available written by her and Rose as well as the newer series about “Ma” pre Little House Days.
My boys love them too. The show of course, but also to hear me read the books aloud to them. It is definitely a great homeschooling resource for character building and even history.
Love this post! Makes me want to wear pigtails today and make a pie! Lol!
http://www.brewingdaily.blogspot.com
Thanks, Katie! I love the books for character building and history, too. We always enjoyed historical fiction for bringing history to life – and this is even better! Love your idea of wearing pigtails and making a pie! 🙂
I am SO glad you posted this! My daughter LOVES Little House and she would love for me to come up with a learning unit based on it.
Thanks, Julie! I always enjoy your themed units and would love to see what you come up with! 🙂
Love LHP!! I only read a few books as a kid but when I started working in a library as a teenager, I read every book I could find in the series and about Laura. I enjoy all the television shows as well. Here’s another resource for you: http://www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com/ These are CDs of the music from the LHP books. I worked with the creator of this project and they are fabulous.
Thanks so much, Kristi! I really appreciate the link! (I wonder why that didn’t come up in a Google search.) I added it to the post! 🙂
Thanks for the nod! We enjoyed our study. We are doing Pony Express this next week and then will be moving into the more modern history with WWI and the Great Depression…hope to have some fun, free resource links for that as well!
Love the pics…we still need to get down to Beatrice, Nebraska to visit the first Homestead in Nebraska…oh, and Pioneer Village…my kids would love that!
Thanks, Amy! I really appreciated that you wrote about your unit study! I’ll love to read about your upcoming unit studies, too! Pioneer Village is great … visiting that and the first homestead in Nebraska would be fun additions to the unit! 🙂
I loved these books when I was little. It would such fun to visit the way you did.
Thanks, JDaniel4’s Mom! We’ve definitely been lucky to have my parents live so close to De Smet. It’s really a special family event when we attend the Laura Ingalls Wilder Pageant together.
This is so fun! I have been looking for some pioneer ideas for school since Pioneer Day is coming up on the 24th. There are some neat ones here I will have to look further into! Thanks again Deb! 🙂
Thanks, Jessica! Pioneer Day sounds like fun … I hope you had a great day! I’d love to hear what you did if you had a chance to celebrate it! 🙂
I was very excited to see your post about Little House on the Prairie! I grew up reading all of the little house books — my mom read them to me and I read them myself. I am not a homeschooling parent, but do teach preschool. It really made me think about the possibility of including the books into my preschool curriculum one of these years. I haven’t read them in a long time, do you think they would be appropriate read-alouds for 3-5 year olds?
Thanks for your comment, Mieke! I read them aloud to my kids at that age, but it would really depend on the children and how interested they are. You might want to just read the most interesting parts/parts that wouldn’t be disturbing to the children.
Great blog post, our whole family loves the little house series, I had the opportunity to visit DeSmet some years ago, and can’t wait to go back now that my children are older. Thanks for reminding me how fun it was!! I look forward to checking out your blog Thanks~April
Thanks for your kind comment, April! It’s been fun for us to visit De Smet even now that my kids are adults – and it’s a bit different each time! 🙂
I really like this idea. I think that in our case, this series just will not work (due to the cultural aspect), but I’ll see what kind of book(s) in Poland can lead me and my Boys to the same purpose. Thank you for the inspiration 🙂
Thanks so much! The cultural part would definitely be different, although you could find the series an interesting view of pioneer life in America. Farmer Boy (about the childhood of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s future husband) is an interesting book for boys.
Oh my gosh that picture from Chasing Cherrios ois adorable! I have a washing board I should totally try this with Jada. thanks for posting this!
Thanks, Andrea! That is an adorable photo, isn’t it?! It’s great that you have a washing board – Jada would probably love it! 🙂
Great post! My twins’ second grade teacher read these books to her class. I’m passing this post on to her. She’ll LOVE it.
Thanks for your kind comment, Michelle! And thanks for passing this on to your twins’ second grade teacher! 🙂
Thanks so much for posting all these great resources. We’re planning to do a Little House unit study in the spring. I’ve been gathering ideas, but lots of these were new to me.
Thanks, Sarah! I’m glad the links were helpful! 🙂
What a great topic – who can resist Little House On The Prairie! Childhood memories are flooding back…
Thanks, Tom! I absolutely love the books, and I think it’s great that my hometown still has many of the same values as Little House on the Prairie! 🙂
I love Little House On the Prairie!! One of the regrets of not having a little girl is sharing those books! My older boys “liked” them but not loved. I’ve never been there but would love to go someday. What a great post that brought back some wonderful memories for me!
Thanks so much, Betsy! I think my son appreciated the books more than most boys because of his grandparents’ farm and knowing I grew up near Little House on the Prairie! 🙂
Your post here is full of wonderful photos, first-hand-experience, and great links to other resources. We linked to your so-full-of-goodness post again this week in our second part to our Little House on the Prairie posts:
http://www.wordplayhouse.com/2011/10/little-house-on-the-prairie-1.html
Thanks for the wonderful resource you created here to link to.
Thanks for your very kind comment! I loved your Little House on the Prairie posts, too, and added your link to my post. Thanks so much for linking to me! 🙂