Little House in the Big Woods introduces children of today to how children in the 1800s lived, ate, and played. My kids and I have read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods a few times of the past few years (Click here to see the book listed on Amazon). I was delighted to revisit this series from my childhood. My son, when he as elementary aged, was not initially interested in a book about a young girl, but he was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy it as we read! My daughters have both enjoyed it greatly.
I think one of the reasons that we enjoy this book so much is because Laura and her sister Mary do so many things that are vastly different from the life with which they are familiar. Here are just a few of the educational activities we either learned about and/or replicated in our own home. Below I've written up some of the things we've learned, along with videos or links to learn about these concepts from other people who are more expert than I am.
Not all of these food preparation activities are ones you'll be able to do at home. You probably don't want to! But I've included some related videos below for your convenience if your kids wanted to see what you read about.
In the first chapter, "Little House in the Big Woods" (beginning page 1), Pa makes a chimney in a hollow tree to smoke meat. In the first video, a few foragers use a hollow tree to smoke some meat and also some cheese. Pa's was vertical instead of partly horizontal like this tree. In the second video, a man shows his homemade smoker. It follows the same principles Pa talked about in the book: a place for the fire, hanging meat, damper to adjust the temperature, etc.
Other concepts from the meat chapter are as follows: Pa greased his traps for the animals; Pa slaughters a pig; Ma and the children gather the vegetables for winter storage, with ropes of onions and "wreaths of peppers strung on threads"; the children play with the pig's bladder; Ma cooked the lard from the pig to make "cracklings"; Ma boiled the hog head to make headcheese from the meat; Ma made sausages.
One of Ma's important jobs each week was to make butter. These instructions are found in the chapter "winter Days and Winter Nights" (beginning page 24). Fresh homemade butter on crackers was the most memorable part of our families jump into history with Laura and Mary! Consider also trying the buttermilk (or making buttermilk pancakes!) to learn about the residue from the butter-making process.
In the first video, a woman in a historically restored kitchen makes butter with a butter churn in this video. A narrator explains what she is doing. Consider asking your kids: Why was Laura too young to help? The very kid-friendly SciShow Kids channel shows kids how to make their own butter with cream and a jar, which is what we did for this activity.
In the chapter "Summertime," page 186-192, Laura describes Ma's method to making cheese, including the need for rennet (from a calf's stomach), and the results of making cheese, including the curds and whey. The first video has no words. The second video shows a recreation of making cheese in the 19th cenury.
Before Christmas (page 63-64), Ma makes molasses candy by boiling molasses and sugar together and pouring the liquid onto snow in curlicues. I like how in this video, the girls (who are likewise inspired by Laura and Mary) use their sno-cone maker instead of real snow.
"The Sugar Snow" (pages 117-130) and "Dance at Grandpa's" (page 131-152) detail the processes of making maple syrup and maple sugar, including tapping the apple trees.
In the fall, Laura really enjoys eating pumpkin pies (see pages 216-218). Ma cooks her pumpkin by boiling it. The first video below shows the steps in just one minute, with text on the screen to describe the process and no narration. You might want to watch it on half-speed. The second video is longer and shows a different type of pumpkin pie.
In the fall, Ma and the girls hulled corn, using corn and ash from the fire (see pages 218-221). Today it's called hominy. In this video, the woman uses lye. Lye is made from wood ash.
Much of life was busy for the girls, even though they were the only ones around. Here's Ma's rhyme.
Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday.
Below are some of the chores mentioned in the books.
On pages 41-52, we learn about Pa's rifle, how he made bullets, and how to load his gun. It is mentioned to be a "percussion" gun without a patch box.
Ma's sister brought her an apple with cloves in it as a Christmas gift (pages 78). It makes the kitchen smell nice! This is so easy to replicate. The video below shows how make a cloved apple (pomander) as a gift today.
Pa needed to rush to harvest the grain (pages 199-212, and pages 221-228) and it didn't help when the cousin didn't help at all. Laura and Mary loved watching the threshing machine come to thresh the wheat. It was quite the machine! The first video shows how grain was harvested and uses a steam powered threshing machine. The second shows a horse powered threshing machine in motion, jumping from section to section to show how the gears relate to each other. The last video shows how it works with diagrams, so it seems a little more technical.
My son had a Gears Factory (see more about this product on Amazon), so as we read about the harvest machine and looked at the picture, my son was determined to make our own version of it, so we could better visualize how the horses turned the gears that turned the motor! It is easier once you see the video explaining it but it was still pretty hard without the right pieces! Fun to try to figure out, at leaset.
One of Ma's jobs during the harvest was making hats from the straw (see pages 212-215). The following video, while lengthy, does explain the many steps to making the hats!
Mary and Laura did have some fun! Here are their play moments. In addition to these activities, they climbed trees, played house under branches, played in the snow, drew pictures in the window frost, and looked through a Bible picture book, among other things.
In the Chapter "tbd" (beginning on page tbd), we learn that Mary had a rag doll, while Laura just had a corn cob doll. At Christmas (pages 74-77), Laura gets her own rag doll.
Here's the description from the book.
She had a face of white cloth with black button eyes. A black pencil had made her eyebrows, and her cheeks and her mouth were red with the ink made from pokeberries. Her hair was black yarn that had been knit and raveled, so that it was curly. She had little red flannel stockings and little black cloth gaiters for shoes, and her dress was pretty pink and blue calico."
The videos below show how to make some rag dolls. Neither of these rag dolls is quite like Laura's.
Ma also made the girls paper dolls (page 33, page 84). Here's a video about making these.
Pa often plays the fiddle. Here are the songs he played that I've found referenced in the book.
I believe Grandma (Charlotte Quiner Holbrook) is of Scottish heritage. Her jig with her son George is very amusing (see pages 148-149). See a sample Scottish jig below. (Pretend that the bagpipes are a fiddle.)
In the chapter "Going to Town" (pages 156-176), the family goes to Pepin, Wisconsin. Find Pepin on the map and figure out how you would get there.
Next time I read Little House in the Big Woods, I may find more great ideas for learning! I hope this helps you through your read aloud too!
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