{The World of Little House Lesson Plan Week 1}

This semester in our homeschool coop, I'll be teaching a 1st & 2nd grade class called "The World of Little House". Each week in class, we will read one of the My First Little House books adapted books from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series, and then do loads of hands-on fun stuff.

I've been getting really excited (and just a teeny tiny bit overwhelmed) since I was asked to teach this class, and am looking forward to Monday when we kick the semester off.

This week we will read Christmas in the Big Woods. In the short story,

"Laura and Mary each had a pan, and Pa and Ma showed them how to pour the dark syrup in little streams onto the snow."

So, that's what we'll do, although we'll be using crushed ice from Sonic, rather than Wisconsin snow.

We did a test run this week at home using this site's recipe:




and squiggled the spoon into our initials:


Although, honestly, everyone in our family had to spit them out...guess when you don't have any other kind of candy to compare it to, it must taste pretty good. We, however, prefer modern candy with all it's yummy fructose.

Later in the story, Laura receives a rag doll for her Christmas gift. So to the thrift store I went in search of old sheets to rip into strips for each student to make their own rag doll. And I ripped and ripped and ripped the sheets until we had little threads all over the house. I followed these instructions to make this doll:



And finally we'll string some bells on a piece of ribbon to ring along to "Jingle Bells." Should be great fun!