Little House on the Prairie Unit Study: Week 1

This week has been our first of a ten week summer adventure, all about the Little House on the Prairie books:

It is our plan to renovate our play house into Laura’s Little House, T11, as Mr Ingalls, is spending the summer learning all manner of survival skills, whilst the girls, as Mrs Ingalls, Mary, Laura and Carrie, will be learning to sew, cook prairie style and all sorts of other skills which would have been useful for prairie living. We will also be embarking on a journey to discover the chemistry and power of the natural cleaners they used in Laura’s time, with our Spar-Klean science and the children will keep up their writing by maintaining their own blog: A summer of Little House Living.

We have all been kept busy as a family renovating our play house. It has been our primary activity during our first week, and we are nearly finished. Progress so far:

All hands were on deck for the clearing out

T11 preparing the outside for browning, whilst the girls paint

We had the local inspector come and check the work was being done to the required standard.

After just one coat she declared all was proceeding in the right direction

Here is the outside, almost finished. This week we will put in the bottom level glass, reattach the planters to the window sill and fill A4's large planter with soil for her vegetable garden — Here is the outside, almost finished. This week we will put in the bottom level glass, reattach the planters to the window sill and fill A4’s large planter with soil for her vegetable garden

And here is the inside. It required two coats of paint. I am spending no money on this project and we are using all the paint we had lying around. It was old and lumpy, but it did the job. Well, it almost did the job until we ran out. So I had the children raid their art paints and we finished off using their acrylic paint! The inside still needs the wood painted brown and the floor treated to a coat of the brown also. It will then be ready to fill up with goodies!

Whilst heaps was going on outside in the play house, much industry was also occurring inside our home. All the children had lots of fun in the kitchen:

T11 made sweet prairie pancakes:

Prairie pancakes, with boiled blackberries, yogurt and maple syrup

L10 made crispy fried salt pork, mashed potatoes with green beans and a home-made gravy:

This was so much better than we all thought it was going to be. Really, really tasty!

C10 decided to make some corn bread:

Whilst A4 and B2 helped me to make prairie pancakes served with crispy bacon and eggs:

Not our most healthiest of weeks, but we had worked hard, so probably burnt it off!

The little ones, in addition to helping with the house, played with their Little House paper dolls:

The girls playing with their paper dolls.

And A4 made a button string as a toy for B2 who would be playing Carrie all summer:

A4 is also learning to read using McGuffey’s Primer. She is doing so well, and it’s simplicity seems to really suit her:

L10 and C10 made a (slightly lumpy but I’m told very comfortable)

mattress to go on the top floor of the play house which is going to be the sleeping area:

T11, preparing himself for ladder making (which he is a little worried about doing) made some leather twine, turned it into rope and practiced the knots he would be using to make his ladder:

And his pretend dagger he made for practising the knots on:

Last but not least we started to rip up old material to make into a rag rug:

Lots of ripped up denim. We're not sure if we're going to go with lots of different colours or just denim. — Lots of ripped up denim. We’re not sure if we’re going to go with lots of different colours or just denim.

Next week we’ll be finishing off the house, moving the mattress to the upstairs, making hooks and nighties to hang on the hooks, cooking from the Little House cook book and much, much more. We really are having a lovely summer!

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