Teacher's Guide Author: Kristin M. Karyczak, 4th grade teacher, Marion Earl Elementary School, Clark County School District
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This teachers' guide is one of a series including activities for all chapters of On the Banks of Plum Creek. Additional teacher's guides are available for other Little House books as well as other books addressing the topic of U.S. westward migration.
- Little House Teacher's Guides
- Teacher's Guides for Patty Reed's Doll, Sallie Fox, Sarah, Plain and Tall, and other exploration children's books.
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Chapter Overviews:During the mid-1800's in Minnesota, Pa Ingalls has worked so hard to set up his wheat field only to have it eaten by millions of grasshoppers just before harvesting time. The grasshoppers ate every green thing in sight and laid their eggs during a long period of no rain. Since there would be no harvest the next year either Pa Ingalls was forced to leave Ma Ingalls and the little girls, Mary, Laura, and Carrie, and travel east to find work in order for them to survive.
Chapters' Themes: the grasshoppers' life cycle and diet, Minnesota prairie weather, using similes and metaphors, surviving droughts, having hope, surviving harsh times, a prairie woman's duties in the mid- 1800's
Suggested Activities
- Language Arts
- Simile and Metaphor Search
- Students will search Chapters 25-27 for the several similes and metaphors that were used by the author, and write them down in a log.
- They will then find other instances in the same chapters in which a simile or metaphor could be used.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4) 3.5 A. It is expected that students will explain how the author uses similes and metaphors.
- What If...Changing the Course of a Story
- Students will discuss with a classmate how they think the plot of the story would change if the grasshoppers had not arrived. What if the setting were different? How would the plot change then?
- Students will pick a new setting for the story to take place and then write an alternative plot for just Chapters 25-27.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4) 3.1 Students are expected to A. explain setting. B. identify how one event may cause another event. C. make inferences and draw conclusions about setting and plot based on evidence.
- Mathematics
- Grasshopper Word Problems
- Demonstrate a mathematical word problem using the info Pa Ingalls gives about the grasshopper eggs on p. 208, and discuss with students how to solve the word problem using Singapore Math strategies.
- Have students design and answer their own grasshopper word problems. They will then share these with a classmate.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4).24 students will generate and solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems using whole numbers in practical situations
- Prairie Money (Social Studies and Math)
- Pose this question to the students to discuss: "How much do you think Pa Ingalls would have had to earn before he could come back home to Laura Ingalls and her family?"
- By looking through the chapters with the class come up with a list of necessities for the Ingalls Family: items such as a new pair of boots for Pa, potatoes, milk, a cow, bread, butter, a new dress or shirt.
- Have the students research how much these items may have cost in the mid-1800's. The students will then add up the cost of these items to make an estimate on how much Pa will need to earn in order to return to his family.
- As an extension students may look up to see how much the items cost present day and compare the cost to the past.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4).1 6 students will estimate to determine reasonableness of an answer in mathematical and practical situations.
- CEF (4).20 students will add and subtract decimals
- Prairie Weather of Today (Science and Math)
- Students will be assigned one prairie state to record the weather daily for a month.
- They will then present the temperatures on a line graph for that month and pose at least two questions to the class regarding their line graph.
- Standards Addressed:
- CEF (4)5.2 organize and represent data using a variety of graphical representations including frequency tables and line plots.
- CEF (4)5.6 interpret data and make predictions using frequency tables and line plots.
- Social Studies
- Facing Challenges
- In groups students will have to research one of the challenges that the prairie settlers faced in the 1800's and early 1900's. These challenges could include: grasshopper invasions, drought, lack of knowledge with crop cultivation, interference of Native Americans, harsh climate etc.
- The student groups will then compare and contrast their chosen challenge with challenges people moving to the same area may face today. They will need to present the challenges through the use of one of the thinking maps.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4) 3.9 students will organize information
- CEF (4) 2.3 A. students will select after-reading strategies appropriate to text and purpose to connect, compare, and contrast story elements
- Prairie Money (Social Studies and Math)
- Pose this question to the students to discuss: "How much do you think Pa Ingalls would have had to earn before he could come back home to Laura Ingalls and her family?"
- By looking through the chapters with the class come up with a list of necessities: items such as a new pair of boots for Pa, potatoes, milk, a cow, bread, butter, a new dress or shirt.
- Have the students research on the internet and in the school library how much these items may have cost in the mid-1800's. The students will then add up the cost of these items to make a guess on how much Pa will need to earn in order to return to his family.
- As an extension students may look up to see how much the items cost present day and compare the cost to the past.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4).1 6 students will estimate to determine reasonableness of an answer in mathematical and practical situations.
- CEF (4).20 students will add and subtract decimals
- Science
- A Study on Grasshoppers
- The class will be divided into four groups to complete research and poster presentations on several topics involving the grasshopper: the life cycle, reproduction, diet, characteristics and parts of the body)
- Standards Addressed
- CEF L2B Students understand that living things have identifiable characteristics.
- CEF L5B Students understand that living things have specialized structures that perform a variety of life functions.
- Prairie Weather of Today (Science and Math)
- Discuss with students the role water or lack of water plays in prairie farm life
- Students will be assigned one prairie state to record the weather daily for a month.
- They will then present the temperatures on a line graph for that month and pose at least two questions to the class regarding their line graph.
- Standards Addressed
- CEF (4)5.2 organize and represent data using a variety of graphical representations including frequency tables and line plots.
- CEF (4)5.6 interpret data and make predictions using frequency tables and line plots.
- CEF (4)3.1 investigate and describe the properties of water and (4)3.2 investigate and describe the water cycle, including the role of the sun [E5A2]
Historical Overview of Chapter Themes
The Plains region, such as where Laura Ingalls and her family migrated to was difficult to settle due to several factors. The region was very windy, had a lack of water, terrible summer heat & terribly cold winters, and lack of tall vegetation such as trees. Other discouragements in the mid-1800's included droughts, grasshopper invasions, and continued interference with Native Americans. Grasshopper swarms caused massive damage to crops. It also did not help that many of these early migrants were lacking in knowledge on how to raise crops successfully in this new region. Female migrants especially felt the pressure to succeed in this newly settled area. Many women had to live alone with their children on a claim for several months at a time while their husbands worked hundreds of miles away to raise the money necessary to cultivate their own land. These women were so isolated that they lacked that sense of community that they had in their previous home lives.
Additional Resources
- American Expansionism 1783-1860 by Mark S. Joy: Joy discusses the expansion of US from the end of the American Revolution to the start of the American Civil War in 1860.
- A Place to Grow: Women in the American West by Glenda Riley: this book combine several essays and primary documents which discuss western women's experience in settling the west, their relationships with the Native Americans, their duties on the homestead, and stereotypes made of them.
- Grasshoppers on Wikipedia.org : this link gives detailed information on grasshoppers including their diet, life cycle, characteristics, and photos.
- Cost of Food Prices and Wages in the 1800's: This link shows the price of some items in the 1800's
- Weather.com: students may track the weather for different locations at this site.
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Note: This teacher's guide was developed as part of one of the Clark County School District's Teaching American History grants. In this grant module, teachers focused on using children's historical literature to teach cross-curricular concepts relating to 19th century westward movement. For more information about this blog, related teacher's guides, or the grant module, please contact Dr. Christy Keeler.
4 comments:
You have included many very good activities in your teacher guide. I especially liked the changing the story activity you included in your LA section. I am actually doing this with Goldilocks right now. I am having the students change Goldilocks and the setting. They are really enjoying it. Your historical overview and additional resources are perfect. They give just enough background in order to teach the lessons. The additional resources are great for reference for the teacher and the students. Overall I think you have done an amazing job on your guide.
I am definitely going to take some of your ideas and use them in my pioneer unit.
I loved the variety of activities. I liked the weather idea and also pulling your grammar skill lessons from the text.
An additional idea on the weather activity is to compare it to todays weather in the prairies or do a comparison of the praries to the Las Vegas desert.
My students are doing a lot of writing preparing for the Nevada Writing Exam. What If...Changing The Course of a Story allows them to show their creativity and voice. They can also use a multi-flow map to show cause and effect. A Study on Grasshoppers is a cooperative learning lesson my boys will enjoy (Bugs!!)
Adding the second section to your "Similes and Metaphors" activity is a great idea. It's one thing to have students find similes and metaphors, it's another to have them transfer this knowledge by having them create their own. And, it's still another to have them transfer that knowledge to identifying possible similes and metaphors to pre-existing text. This is a nice example of higher level learning.
I am not familiar with Singapore math strategies. Would you create a link that will allow me to learn more?
Instead of a poster, consider having students create PowerPoint presentations or virtual museums (http://educationalvirtualmuseums.blogspot.com/) about the grasshoppers. This will achieve your objectives while adding a technology component.
Be sure to have students compare rainfall issues of the prairie to those of the Nevada desert. This is a great opportunity to teach about water conservation in the Las Vegas Valley and maybe even have students begin a water-themed service project.
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