Tag: laura ingalls wilder

Little House In The Big Woods Adventure: Week by Week PE, Health, and Safety Lessons

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

**This post may contain affiliate links to some of the products and resources that we have used. These are provided at no extra charge to you and help to support our blog and family if a purchase is made through these links. -Thank you!

Here are our Lesson Plans For PE, Health & Safety

On weeks where there are several activities listed just choose a couple that interest you the most to work on.

Tip: If you want to go to a certain week/chapter or subject simply push the ‘ctrl’ and the ‘F’ button down together and a small bar will pop up. Type in the week number or chapter number you want and it will take you to it.

Week 1: Chapters 1 & 2

1. Stranger Danger

  • Practice what to do/say in different scenarios like:
    • Saying ‘Not my Mommy/Not my Daddy‘ if a stranger tries to grab you.
    • Kick, Fight, Bite, Make Noise if a stranger tries to grab you.
    • Have a secret family password for emergencies when you may need a ‘stranger’ to pick up your kids.
  • Discuss different ways a stranger may try to trick your child:
    • try to lure you into a vehicle saying that your  parent is sick and they were sent to pick you up
    • they may say they have something to show you and ask you to come with them
    • try to find out if you are home alone
    • may ask to come inside your home to use the phone
    • may ask for help to find a lost pet
  • Discuss ways to stay safe:
    • NEVER wander off without telling an adult where you are going
    • NEVER talk to strangers
    • NEVER accept items from a stranger
    • NEVER go with a stranger
    • NEVER tell a stranger you are home alone (or post about it on social media)
    • NEVER open a door to a stranger
    • DO find a safe place and tell someone what is happening
    • DO walk away from a stranger
    • DO call your parents or 911 if you do not feel safe

Be Smart Stay Safe: A Video Teaching Kids to Be Safe DVD Plus 3 Music CDs

Be Smart Stay Safe: A Video Teaching Kids to Be Safe DVD Plus 3 Music CDs

2. Games/Outdoor Play

Week 2: Chapters 3 & 4

1. Gun Safety

  • Discuss the importance of gun safety.
  • Make a list of gun safety rules.**
  • This would be a good time to have someone you know show your kids how to properly handle a firearm.
  • Discuss what you learned.

2. What is Rabies?

  • Watch the Old Yeller rabies scene (may not be good for younger kids).
  • Discuss the importance of not playing with wild animals or animals you don’t know.

Old Yeller 2-Movie Collection (Old Yeller/Savage Sam)

Old Yeller 2-Movie Collection Old Yeller/Savage Sam

3. Whole Foods vs Processed Foods

  • Discuss the differences of whole foods and processed foods.
  • Make a list of whole/processed foods in your kitchen.

Fun song for younger kids:

4. How to Read Nutrition Labels

5. Games/Outdoor Play

Week 3: Chapters 5, 6, & 7

1. What Happens When You Don’t Bathe?

  • Discuss what happens when you don’t shower.
  • Discuss how it could impact your relationships.

How to Take a Shower- a pilot video in a relationship series

  • Write out the steps to taking a shower **

2. Happy, Healthy Kids: Fresh Air

  • Discuss how Laura must have felt when she couldn’t go outside.
  • Discuss the benefits of fresh air.
  • Go outside and do something fun for 30 minutes!

3. Games/Outdoor Play

Week 4: Chapters 8 & 9

1. Benefits of Square Dancing

  • Sign Up For Square Dance Lessons. Check wheresthedance.com for a location near you.
  • Or check out these lessons here.

2. Benefits of Natural Light

  1. Laura describes how the sun felt on the trip to town, how does the sun feel where you are today?
  2. Discuss the benefits of sunlight.

Cool Outdoor Activities: Great Things to Do in the Great Outdoors

3. Games/Outdoor Play

Bonus: Check out Jigging

  • Watch this video:
  • Give it a try:

Week 5: Chapters 10 & 11

1. Honey vs. Sugar

  • Discuss the differences between honey and sugar.
  • Have a taste comparison and make a graph of who prefers which.

2. Nutritional Value of Cheese

  1. Discuss the nutritional information of cheese.
  2. Taste several types of cheeses, compare nutritional information.

3. What is Cholesterol?

  1. Discuss what cholesterol is and how it affects your body.
  2. Name 5 foods high in cholesterol and 5 foods low in cholesterol.

4. Wasp Stings

  1. Discuss the body’s reaction to a sting.

How To Treat Bee & Wasp Stings

  1. Discuss how stings were treated in the book.
  2. Write out a step by step sting treatment plan.**

5. How to treat a Fever with Herbs

You can also watch this video about using natural medicines:

  • Discuss how fevers are treated today compared to how they were treated in Laura’s time.
  • Look up pictures of the herbs you learned about. Bonus points if you can draw them in your notebook.**

 Herbs Coloring Book

Kid’s Herb Book, A: For Children of All Ages

6. Games/Outdoor Play

  • Play ‘Steal the Cheese’. Divide into two groups and each group needs an equal amount of cheese (sticks, bean bags, balls, etc). Line up the ‘cheese’ on each side behind the players. The goal is to run and steal the other team’s cheese without getting caught. The first team to steal all the cheese or catch all of the other team’s players is the winner.
  • Square Dance Lesson

Week 6: Chapters 12 & 13

1. Food Pyramid

**Check out this site for more ideas.

  • Discuss what you learned.
  • **Complete one or two activities below:
    • Use construction paper to make a ‘My Plate’ or ‘Food Pyramid’ guide. Cut out pictures of foods from magazines to make a collage.
    • Plan a healthy meal and grocery list using the ‘My Plate’ model.
    • Go shopping and help make healthy food choices.
    • Pretend to be Popcorn and jump up and down to music.

2. Importance of Protein

  • Name 3 nutrients we get from meat and where else we can find them.
  • Discuss the importance of protein in our diets and what happens when you don’t get enough protein in your diet.

3. Calories In 6 Of The Most Popular Fast-Food Kids Meals

  • Discuss what would happen if you only ate fast food.

4. Games/Outdoor Play

Week 7: Finishing Up

  1. Practice making healthy food choices
  2. Research Cabin Fever and ways to prevent/cure it.
  3. Make a Giant Tic-Tac-Toe Game

Bonus: Research Tobacco.

(mentioned in Chapter 9)

  • Discuss what you learned.
  • List 3 different side effects of tobacco use.

Games/Outdoor Play

  • Play any of the games listed above or choose your favorite game to play.
  • Continue your Square Dance lessons.

**BE SURE TO SAVE A FEW SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK FOR YOUR  PORTFOLIO!  TAKE PICTURES OF BIG PROJECTS!

Little House In The Big Woods Adventure: Week by Week Science Lessons

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog2 Comments

**This post may contain affiliate links to some of the products and resources that we have used. These are provided at no extra charge to you and help to support our blog and family if a purchase is made through these links. -Thank you!

Here are our Lesson Plans For Science

On weeks where there are several activities listed just choose a couple that interest you the most to work on.

Tip: If you want to go to a certain week/chapter simply push the ‘ctrl’ and the ‘F’ button down together and a small bar will pop up. Type in the week number or chapter number you want and it will take you to it.

Week 1: Chapters 1 & 2

1. Read about bears or watch a video about bears.

 

For the Little Ones:

 

2. Read about panthers or watch a video about panthers.

 

 

3. Research Microbes and Bacteria.

 

  • Discuss what you learned.
  • How do they affect us?

4. What is Density?

 

Bonus Lesson: Why did the fire burn different colors? (Parental supervision needed for some activities!)

  • Discuss what you learned.
  • Ask your parents if you can have a campfire and use these Cosmic Magical Flame packets to watch the flames change colors.

Week 2: Chapters 3 & 4

1. Read about owls or watch a video about owls.

2. What is Rust?

  • Discuss what you learned.

3. Study the respiratory system.

Watch a video and older kids can do some independent research.

Week 3: Chapters 5, 6, & 7

1. Study the Digestion system.

2. Research Maple Trees

  • Describe how to identify a Maple Tree.

3. Research about collecting maple syrup.

  • Discuss what you have learned.
  • Write out the process for making Maple Syrup. Use this Sequencing Worksheet.
  • Bonus: Draw a picture to go with your project.

Week 4: Chapters 8 & 9

  1. Research and Study animal tracks.

2.  Study the skin.

3. Study the sun.

Week 5: Chapters 10 & 11

1. Study the moon.

2. Research Yellow Jackets vs. Bees.

 

  • Discuss what you learned. Why are Bees so important?
  • Make a Venn Diagram to show the similarities and differences of these two species.
  • Example:

Image result for venn diagram example

 

Week 6: Chapters 12 & 13

1.Research Deer.

  • Watch a video and older kids can do some independent research.

2.Research Thresher and Discuss what horsepower means today.

  • Watch a video and older kids can do some independent research.

 

  • Discuss what you learned.
  • What does a thresher do?
  • How has the meaning of horsepower changed?
  • We used some gears to show how a thresher worked.

3. Research germs.

Week 7: Finishing Up

1. Pick out a previous topic to research more and write a report about it.

2. Check out some other forest animals. Which ones have you seen before?

3. Check out these other videos for more information for you Gold Rush Speech.

  • How is Gold Mined?
  • How is Gold processed?
  • How is Gold used?

 

Fun Projects:

  • My kids also enjoyed reading:

 Bears on the Brain (Science Solves It!)

**BE SURE TO SAVE A FEW SAMPLES OF YOUR WORK FOR YOUR  PORTFOLIO!  TAKE PICTURES OF BIG PROJECTS!

 

 

 

Kirby’s Kids Grade by Grade Homeschool Reading List

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog30 Comments

**This post may contain affiliate links to some of the products and resources that we have used. These are provided at no extra charge to you and help to support our blog and family if a purchase is made through these links. -Thank you!

Here is a list of books that we will be reading with our homeschool. I will update the list as we go through this journey. Many of these books can be found at your local library for FREE but I have provided Amazon links where you can find most of them ‘used’ for cheap. We also keep an Amazon list of books that we would like to purchase and sometimes they are gifted to us for Christmas and/or birthdays.

You should keep a record of the books read. You can do this in a notebook or using this printable HERE. (My kids like the plain ones so they can doodle around the margins but I may try to come up with a ‘prettier’ one later.)

I have also been using a lot of these books with some of the Novel-Ties Study Guides and other unit study guides that I have found online. I try to find as many FREE guides as I can but that isn’t always possible.

Remember that even though I have included Amazon links to these titles you may be able to purchase them used or at a different site for a better price. You may also have access to these books on your Kindle or other reading devices. Be sure to check back in as we will update this as we add more books to our own favorites here!

You may also like to check out these links for book reports:

Pre-K/Kindergarten

These will need to be read-alouds

First Grade:

Some of these may need to be read-alouds

Second Grade:

Third Grade:

Fourth Grade:

Fifth Grade:

Sixth Grade:

Seventh Grade:

Eighth Grade:

Ninth Grade:

Tenth Grade:

Eleventh Grade:

Twelfth Grade:

Updated May 31, 2022

printable-reading-listDownload

Kirby’s Kids: Our 2018-2019 Homeschool Curriculum Reveal

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog5 Comments

*This post does contain some affiliate links which help to support our blog and our family.

Ohhhh! I am so excited to be sharing this post with you. The kids are pretty excited about it too! My fingers are going faster than my brain as I am typing and somehow or another they are managing to put into words what I want to say. I did show a sneak peak of some of the items we’ve received in this post here but now I am going to show you everything we have right now.

If you haven’t seen my latest posts about homeschooling check out the links here but if you are only interested in what we have planned for this year, please keep scrolling.

I’ve been talking about how excited I am for our next homeschool year and I just can’t wait to get started. I have actually talked about this curriculum before but its been awhile. My kids are finally at the age that I think this will work out really well for everyone. Continue reading “Kirby’s Kids: Our 2018-2019 Homeschool Curriculum Reveal” →

Elephant Fuzz, Building Bugs, Poodle Skirts and Moon Day; A Week In Review

Published on by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

We have had quite the week again. Fun and crazy as usual. Keep reading to find out about some of our many adventures here in the little house on the pond. We have included affiliate links to some of the products mentioned in this post. These help to support our blog.

Monday

Elephant fuzz here, elephant fuzz there, elephant fuzz everywhere… sounds a bit like a children’s book, doesn’t it? So what is elephant fuzz? I asked the same thing when I first saw this all over the house:

The kids were quick to reply that it was ‘elephant fuzz’…. ok, but where did it come from? Here is the answer:

It appears that this little pillow has a hole and is leaking elephant fuzz… lol… kids come up with the darnedest things don’t they? Well, I got the hole taken care of and hopefully that’ll be the end of the elephant fuzz.

Afterwards we made some Haystack Cookies or Noodle Cookies as Mr. Awesome calls them. The kids have been eating them up!

That afternoon Jacob put his Kids Cook Real Food skills to work while helping me make a salad to go with our Red & White Pasta.

Monday our regular club dance was ‘dark’ to support a reunion dance that was being held locally. Here is a short video from the event:

We had a good time and got to see old friends plus we made some new ones while we were there. Afterwards we ate at Texas Roadhouse and an exceptional server named Terrence.

Tuesday

I got a call from the Florida Gardiner Scholarship telling me about a glitch in the system which had caused some of my orders to be denied… this meant I had to go back into the system and resubmit the orders… oh what fun!

I also figured out that I can ‘Air Drop’ pictures from my phone to my tablet… this makes life so much easier!

The kids are loving their new routine chart:

I am working on ordering some different magnets because the stars don’t stick very well. I may also paint or paper the board. There will be a post about this sometime in the future.

We read a chapter from the Laura Ingalls Wilder biography before bed and had a short discussion about the things we learned from the chapter. The kids are super excited about the new school year.

They were also very happy that I had ordered more of their favorite toothpaste:

We all love the lemon flavor and I love the fact that it works so great! I always buy the triple pack and the first time I ordered I bought the multipack so we could try out all the flavors. The kids didn’t care for the peppermint or cinnamon as they thought they was too spicy. Some of us older folks liked the wintergreen flavor but lemon was the majority vote.

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I actually found a little time on Tuesday to paint my nails too! Mommas need a little bit of pampering from time to time. 😊

Wednesday

Wednesday morning we changed our breakfast routine a bit. Instead of Muffins the kids had a bowl of fresh fruit and a cup of yogurt.

I’m really loving this new fruit bowl I got earlier this month. It is so much bigger than the one we had, plus it’s not as fragile. The banana holder is a great feature as well. It keeps the kids from dragging out and bruising all of the bananas just to find the ‘perfect’ apple.

While cleaning the bathroom I got a call from Walgreens …. NOT… it was a telemarketer call disguised as a local business. I HATE these kind of calls. They wanted to help me with my interest rate on a card they knew nothing about.

After politely asking a strongly accented Chris Sawyers to remove me from the list I had to threaten to report them to the authorities for FRAUD. He asked me to hold online while he removed me from the list. I did hold, with the phone muted and the receiver set on the shelf, and an hour later I was still on hold… haha Mr. Sawyers from card services you’ve won a mention on my blog. Congrats!

After our morning chores were finished we played one of the new games that we’ve gotten:

Bugs Building is similar to the once popular Jenga game. They had a lot of fun playing the game but then we had some major midweek meltdowns!

Luckily I still had a hidden stash of FREE chocolates…

Thursday

Hmmm… Thursday was a kinda gloomy day, very rainy and windy too. We didn’t get our laundry done because of the weather but it got finished up on Friday. We were also without power for a little while that morning.

The kids made the best of no electricity and played some board games. I think they thought they were getting out of chores but everyone had to help finish up the chores when the power came back on. Then it was time for some lunch which was Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.

After I got the kids down for quiet time I got this text message from Mr. Awesome:

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Oh boy do I love these kind of messages. I dug my outfit out of the closet and got to work on making some dinner. I had planned to make Spaghetti but opted for Sloppy Joes when I realized I didn’t have any noodles.

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Unfortunately I didn’t get any pics of the Pink Cadillac Dance or our super cute outfits because my phone was acting up again.

Friday

Friday was Moon Day and we celebrated with some Moon Pies for an afternoon snack. That morning we finished up the laundry for the week and caught up on few things that needed done around the house.

After paying a couple of bills I went ahead and renewed our ABC Mouse that the kids have been begging for. They wasted no time getting on their and taking care of their virtual pets. Joey also made sure to update his avatar:

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Those glasses look almost like his and they are just too cute!

That afternoon I went to make some our favorite Cream Cheese Chicken with Rice and Green Beans only to realize I didn’t have any cream of chicken soup… I don’t know what happened when I went grocery shopping last week but I guess I didn’t do a good job. I did finish dinner and it was really good with the substitutions I made so I’ll try to get that updated recipe posted soon.

That evening we went to the square dance. Again I didn’t get any pics because my phone died but I did get that video finished. I’ll have it at the end of the post.

Saturday

I had planned to get the porch cleaned up a bit but the constant thunderstorms kept us inside. The morning was spent tidying up around the house and then we went out to eat at Golden Corral. It wasn’t the best experience and we probably won’t visit that location again but the kids enjoyed it.

After eating we headed to the movies to watch the new Ant Man movie. It was pretty good and everyone had a great time. All in all it was a good week and we are really looking forward to a great time in the upcoming week.

This week I plan to get some of the lessons entered into the Homeschool Manager app and also set a date for us to start school. I will also be working on a couple of more promo videos for square dancing as many clubs will be starting classes in September.

As far as cleaning the FlyLady missions will be in the Master Bedroom this week. I just need to do a tidying up in there so I’m not really sure how much I will get done in there. I would really like to get the porch cleaned off and have some usable space out there but the weather hasn’t been cooperating.

What are your goals for the upcoming week?

Below are some other things that we’ve done this past week and that video we put out for square dancing.

Other books we’ve read this week were:

Be A Good Dragon is a cute book about a dragon with a cold.

Yum! A Preston Pig Story is a variation of the ‘Three Little Pigs’ that kids enjoyed.

We got lots of goodies in the mail this week:

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I was really excited to get these books and hopefully the kids will get to use them some this weekend.

This week I also posted these posts here (which may have affiliate links to some of the products above):

We are looking forward to a new week with lots of new surprises. So far we have these activities planned.

Upcoming Events/Holidays:

Here is that video I promised: