I have a Farmer Boy unit study and fun hand loom craft. Also, grab more ideas on my Best Homeschool Unit Studies page.
Dig into a wonderful literature-based Farmer Boy unit study while also teaching your child about pioneer and farm life.
Too, I have a step-by-step weaving loom tutorial that demonstrates weaving and ends with a beautiful keepsake.
Additionally, this is a great activity that teaches not only a way of life in pioneer days but also a unique handicraft, fine motor skills, following directions and patterning.
Another great book to supplement your study is Julia Rothman Farm Anatomy to study the farming aspect of life back then.
It covers farm animals, skills like how to plow a field and milk a cow, make cheese, barn structures, and more modern machinery.
Besides a great way to learn is by doing, so here are activities for each area that you might want to teach-cooking, science, history, language arts, and crafts.
Farmer Boy Unit Study Ideas
RECIPES
- Make Fried Apples N’ Onions alongside your next dinner to try a taste of one of Almanzo’s favorite treats.
- Give Almanzo’s Moms Doughnuts a try to start off your day.
- Next, pancakes are an important part of a hungry growing boys breakfast in both this book and The Long Winter as well, make Farmer Boy Pancakes.
FARMER BOY SCIENCE
- A must do activity is the Popcorn and Milk Experiment from the book.
- However, if you are going to do the popcorn and milk experiment, you have to also try this Dancing Corn.
- Furthermore, choose an animal or two from Farm Anatomy or another book to study.
- Learn about farming with my How to Create Homeschool Farming Curriculum and Adorable Clothespin Sheep Craft.
- Further, farmer Boy talks about how ice was stored in the days before refrigeration, this Ice Insulation Experiment gives your child a little more understanding how that works.
- Add my Free Horse Unit Study for Your Horse Loving Kids.
- Learn how to make soap.
- I thought this How to Test Soil Ph would make a great experiment if you are doing gardening alongside your study as well.
- Make Butter
FARMER BOY GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY
- Find Malone, New York on a map where Almanzo was born and raised.
- The book covers approximately one year in Almanzo’s life, have your child create a timeline to learn the basics of a timeline.
- And then, take a step back in time and watch this video on the Wilder Homestead, see the layout, furniture, and more details of life as a pioneer.
LANGUAGE ARTS
- Vocabulary. Find a full set of vocabulary flashcards for the whole book here to use online, print, as well as in several online activities to practice.
- Have your child write a letter to Manzo from the future to try and explain life in present times.
- Use excerpts from the book for copywork to develop handwriting skills.
FARMER CRAFTS
- Make a Clove Apple like Ma Ingalls to preserve it and scent the house.
- Create these adorable Pine Cone Farm Animals
- Pioneer Living and Cloth Dyeing
- Fun Pioneer Peg Dolls
Farmer Boy Manzo won an award for his milk fed pumpkin, creating this Book Page Pumpkin using an old book
Books for Studying Little House on the Prairie Series
Little House on the Prairie Unit Study Resources
Add some of these fun resources to ignite a love for learning about the Little House on the Prairie.
The nine books in the timeless Little House series tell the story of Laura’s real childhood as an American pioneer, and are cherished by readers of all generations. They offer a unique glimpse into life on the American frontier, and tell the heartwarming, unforgettable story of a loving family.
Readers around the world know and love Laura, the little girl born in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and raised in covered wagons and on wide open prairies. Now Little House fans can learn more about the remarkable story of the pioneer girl who would one day immortalize her adventures in the beloved Little House books in this, the first picture book biography book of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
With the My First Little House picture book series, the youngest readers can share in the joy of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books in these illustrated adaptations of the beloved series!
Laura, Pa, Ma, Mary, and baby Carrie have traveled from the Big Woods to the prairie in their covered wagon, driving through tall grass until they found just the right spot for their new home. With the help of their kind neighbor, Mr. Edwards, Pa builds a snug little house for the family in the middle of the wide-open prairie.
The second book in the treasured Little House series, Farmer Boy is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s beloved story of how her husband, Almanzo, grew up as a farmer boy far from the little house where Laura lived. This edition features the classic black-and-white artwork from Garth Williams.
The nine Little House books have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America’s frontier history and as heartwarming, unforgettable stories. The Little House series has captivated millions of readers with its depiction of life on the American frontier.
While Laura Ingalls grows up on the prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Here Almanzo and his brother and sisters help with the summer planting and fall harvest. In winter there is wood to be chopped and great slabs of ice to be cut from the river and stored. Time for fun comes when the jolly tin peddler visits, or best of all, when the fair comes to town.
Almanzo wishes for just one thing—his very own horse—and he must prove that he is ready for such a big responsibility.
With this cookbook, you can learn how to make classic frontier dishes like corn dodgers, mincemeat pie, cracklings, and pulled molasses candy. The book also includes excerpts from the Little House books, fascinating and thoroughly researched historical context, and details about the cooking methods that pioneers like Ma Ingalls used, as well as illustrations by beloved artist Garth Williams.
Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, based on her own childhood and later life, are still beloved classics almost a century after she began writing them. Now young readers will see just how similar Laura's true-life story was to her books. Born in 1867 in the "Big Woods" in Wisconsin, Laura experienced both the hardship and the adventure of living on the frontier. Her life and times are captured in engaging text and 80 black-and-white illustrations.
- Three Piece Set: Kid girls colonial dress, attached apron and bonnet.
A beautifully designed coloring book featuring classic artwork by Garth Williams and quotes from all nine original Little House books. Perfect for at-home creative time—return to the world of Little House with your kids...or enjoy on your own!
Join Laura Ingalls, her Ma and Pa, and her sisters, Mary, Carrie, and Grace, on their travels across the frontier as you color in your favorite pioneer characters and scenes and revisit this beloved series.
This 96-page coloring book offers hours of relaxing, stress-reducing pleasure.
More Best Homeschool Unit Studies
- Fun Chocolate Unit Study and DIY Chocolate Candy Bar Activity
- Fun Renaissance Unit Study Ideas for Kids and Lapbook Renaissance
- Free Homeschool Geology Unit Study And Easy DIY Eggshell Geode
- Free Swiss Family Robinson Unit Study And Easy DIY Water Filter
- Free Peregrine Falcon Lapbook And Fun Unit Study Ideas
- Dandelion Flower Unit Study and Easy Tea Recipe & Notebooking Pages
- France Unit Study and Make Easy French Bread
- Free Horse Unit Study for Your Horse Loving Kids
- Free Greek Mythology Unit Study and Greece Lapbook & Fun Hands on LEGO Zeus
- How Do Sharks Float STEM Activity Free Shark Unit Study & Notebooking Pages
- Free Homeschool Chicken Unit Study and Anatomy of an Egg Felt Activity & Worksheet
- How to Incorporate Subjects into a Fun Homeschool Cooking Unit Study
- Volcano Unit Study and Fun Apple Volcano
- Solar System Unit Study and Hands-on Planets Activity
- Charlotte’s Web Homeschool Unit Study and Fun Hands-on Ideas
- Homeschool Unit Study Ideas | Lewis and Clark Exploration Lapbook
- Mushroom Unit Study and Kids Learning Activities
- Little House on The Prairie Unit Study and Fun Punched Tin Lantern
Finally, look at this fun hand loom craft.
Farmer Boy Unit Study Hand Loom Craft
However, before your children begin with this craft have them learn about chores or activities that would be done seasonally.
After reading the book, look at some of the chores. I have divided them by seaons.
WINTER
SPRING
- weaving cloth on a loomm
- hauling timber
- sledding
- filling the ice house
- threshing grain
- plowing the fields
- dyeing woold
- shearing the sheep
- gathering the eggs
- making maple syrup
- planting crops
SUMMER
FALL
- making ice cream
- haying
- trout fishing
- berry picking
- butter making
- mending fences
- candle making
- winterizing house and barns
- soap making
- butchering livestock
Now, let’s make this fun hand loom craft.
You will need:
- 8 jumbo craft/popsicle sticks
- Several colors of yarn
- Twine
- Scissors
- Hot glue gun/sticks
- Twine
First, hot glue 4 craft sticks corner to corner to form a square frame, allowing glue to harden.
Glue twine to the bottom corner of the frame and wrap it tightly all the way around ½” apart, glue into place at the end, cut off excess.
Run a thick line of glue across the top and bottom to hold the lines in place from one side all the way to the other.
Press another craft stick on top of the glue on top and bottom.
Cut the angled strings on the backside off the frame to leave a clean easy to use loom.
Pre-cut piles of yarn 10” long.
If your child wants to create a pattern for their loom, lay out the threads flat in the order they will be placing them.
Demonstrate how to weave over and under from one side to the other.
For younger children it may help to take another craft stick and thread it over and under to keep the alternating lines easier for them to identify. It slides easily up the lines as they fill it in.
For the next yarn switch to the opposite-under and then over.
Repeat continuing up the loom, every so often pushing the rows down so that it ends up full.
Once the loom is full, cut the ends off of each side just short of the edges of the frame.
Run a generous line of hot glue along a craft stick and press it down onto the cut yarn edges on both sides.
Create a hanging loop by knotting off a loop of yarn and hot glue onto the back of the frame.
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