Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Our Story: Life in a Sod House
Imagine moving into a house made out of sod that you and your family had to build in the middle of a prairie! Find great information and activities that will help you understand how it felt to live on the prairie.
US National Archives
Laura Ingalls Wilder Teaching Unit: Pioneer Life With Laura
A great instructional activity using the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder to teach about pioneer life on the plains. Filled with before reading and during reading activities and questions.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Settlement [Pdf]
"Settlement" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about the hardships of life on the prairie for early settlers. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining main...
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: "The Little Old Shanty on the Claim"
An essay provided as part of the PBS series, Frontier House, describes the housing options of pioneers on the prairies in eastern Montana.
PBS
Pbs: Homes on the Prairie
A complete description of the prairie and how it changed as people began to settle there. Click on the links after the text to take you to the next page.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Settlement Multiple Choice Questions [Pdf]
"Settlement with Multiple Choice Questions" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about the hardships of life of the prairie for the early settlers. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Settlement [Pdf]
"Settlement" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about the hardships of early settlers on the prairie. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes: determining main idea and...
Other
Web Quest: Little House on the Prairie: Grades 4 6
This WebQuest (internet based project) asks students to "Persuade people that they should build a museum about Laura Ingalls Wilder in 'your state.'"
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: "Hardship Without Glory": Life on the Trail
From the PBS series, "Frontier House," read about the struggles that pioneers experienced as they made their ways west to new lands via wagon trains.
Virtual Museum of Canada
Virtual Museum of Canada: Community Stories: Saskatoon & Wwii Experience
The impact that the Second World War had on the prairie town on Saskatoon is investigated here. This investigation includes how Saskatoon was transformed from an agriculture centre to a town crucial to the mobilization of supplies and a...
NPR: National Public Radio
Npr: Prairie Diaries
This site from NPR is an excellent example of personal narratives from the heartland. Read and listen to excerpts from Kansans about a day in their life. What were they doing, what were they thinking, what was going on in their lives.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Recreation and Leisure Time on the Frontier
Read about how the homesteaders on the American frontier added a little levity to their otherwise harsh frontier life, and in particular how women, how spent much time at home, worked to add variety to their lives. From a companion essay...
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Creating a Home on the Frontier
Making a house a home was a struggle on the plains. This companion essay to the PBS series, Frontier House, describes the problems with getting water, outhouses, and furnishing the sod house.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Food on the Frontier
Would you clean your plate if you had to eat what frontier families served in eastern Montana? Find out what's on the menu from this companion essay to the PBS series, Frontier House.
Other
Kansas Collection Books: Emigrant Life in Kansas
This site is a textual copy of a book written by an Englishman, Percy G. Ebbutt entitled Emigrant Life in Kansas, published in 1886. The book focuses on a young man's experiences on the prairie in Kansas. Written for an English audience.
US Geological Survey
U.s. Geological Survey: North Prairie Wildlife Research: Caterpillars of Forests
Descriptions, photographs and information on the caterpillar life cycle for the different species of eastern United states caterpillars. Includes details on collecting and photographing specimens.
US National Archives
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library: Pioneer Life With Laura
This site is an integrated teaching unit on pioneer life and Westward Movement of the United States, using books by author Laura Ingalls Wilder. It includes suggested read-alouds, a wealth of large and small group activities, a pioneer...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Letter to Grandmother [Pdf]
"Letter to Grandmother" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a family of early settlers who moved west. A girl writes a letter to her grandmother telling her about their new life on the plains. It is followed by...
Education Development Center
Center for Children and Technology: Picturing Modern America
Collection of visual resources designed to engage learners in historical thinking; that is, learning to think like historians. Activities and visuals focus on a forty-year period in American history, from 1880 to 1920, making relevant a...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Native Americans Potawatomi [Pdf]
"Native Americans--Potawatomi" is a one page, nonfiction, reading passage about what the prairie looked like during each of the seasons when the Potawatomi lived there. It is followed by questions which require students to provide...
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Life Science: Mammal Characteristics
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] What is a mammal? They walk, run, swim, and fly. They live in the ocean, fly in the sky, walk on the prairies, and run in the savanna. There is a tremendous amount...
Other
At Home in the Heartland: At Home on the Fringes of the Prairie (1800 1850)
Interactive site offers information and pictures pertaining to early pioneer life. See advertisements in the paper, furniture, glassware, and food preparation tools. Read stories of individuals who lived during that time and make...
PBS
Pbs: Death of the Dream
This PBS site offers a taste of rural life in the Midwest. You can tour a virtual farmhouse,read poetry of the time, and see examples of prairie architecture.
Nebraska Studies
Nebraska Studies: Building a Sod House
Here's great information on building sod houses. You can even watch a video of a famous two-story sod house that stood until 1967.