Winter Days in the Big Woods Unit Study for PreK & Early Elementary

This Preschool & Early Elementary Unit Study is based on the “My First Little House Books” Winter Days in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

In this Winter Days in the Big Woods Unit Study, your preschool and early elementary students will complete lessons and hands-on activities for history, geography, practical arts, science, language arts, and music.

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Winter Days in the Big Woods Unit Study Required Resources

Winter Days in the Big Woods (My First Little House Books) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Printable Pack for this Winter Days in the Big Woods Unit Study (see below)

Winter Days in the Big Woods Unit Study Activities & Lessons

Geography

Find Wisconsin on a United States map. Use the Wisconsin map in the Printable Pack. Talk about the weather in Wisconsin and compare it to where you live.

Social Studies/History/Culture

Compare how the Ingalls family did things described in the book to how your family does them today. Use the Big Woods Venn diagram worksheet in the Printable Pack.

Health

Laura, Mary, and Ma gathered many vegetables from their garden to store so they would have something to eat during the long winter. Visit a local farmer’s market or grocery store with a large produce section and find these vegetables:

• potatoes
• carrots
• beets
• turnips
• cabbages
• onions
• peppers (probably sweet green peppers)
• pumpkins

Select one or two that you haven’t tasted before and try them in a new recipe. Use the Ingalls’ Family Vegetable Taste Test worksheet in the Printable Pack.

Science

Change a liquid into a solid. Make your own butter from cream just like Ma did. Use the Butter Making Experiment worksheet in the Printable Pack.

Practical Arts

On Saturdays, Ma always made bread while the girls each got a small piece of dough to shape into a mini loaf. Make your own bread together with your kids with this easy video & recipe from Melissa K Norris.

If you aren’t sure you want to bake a loaf of yeast bread, try making some cornbread with Bless This Mess Please. It’s very easy and it’s something that the Ingalls family would have often eaten with their meals.

Just for fun, make a log cabin out of pretzels and graham crackers with these instructions from Bake Me Some Sugar

Arts

Make paper dolls just like the Ingalls girls did. Printable Paper Dolls is a great place to print and cut out some of your own.

Music

Pa would sometimes play his fiddle and sing for his girls. Take a listen to these traditional songs that Pa sang.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Pop Goes the Weasel

Auld Lang Syne

Math

Use the Counting and Subtraction worksheets in the Printable Pack and let your kids review those math skills.

Language Arts

Copy work and narration is a way for your kids to work on their spelling and grammar without having to do boring diagramming workbooks.

Use the Winter Days in the Big Woods Copywork and Narration pages in the Printable Pack.

First, dictate the passage to your student, saying a couple of words at a time. Don’t help them with capitalization, punctuation, or spelling yet.  After your child has written the sentence from dictation, let her see the original to check it with her work. Let her correct all of her mistakes, using the original so that she knows how it should look.

Then have him re-write the selection in his very best handwriting.

Next, learn the 8 vocabulary words from the Big Woods Vocabulary cards in the Printable Pack.

Get your Winter Days in the Big Woods Unit Study Printable Pack in the HHO Shop