Shauna Tamar Harris
Chapter Overview: This chapter deals with the planting of the garden and the coiming of the soldiers to forcebly remove the settlers from the land in which they have built thier frontier homes.
Chapter Themes: Change: change of eating - the new garden promises more than just bread and meat to eat, Change of scenery - the black land now has turned green as far as the eye can see, and change of mind - the government has now changed thier minds about the northern territory of where it is safe for settlers to settle.
- Language Arts
Activity 1: Feelings
Choose a character from the chapter. Describe how that character felt at the begining, the middle, and the end of the chapter. Give examples from the chapter to show why he or she felt this way. Record the page numbers where you found the examples.
ELA 4.5.4: Draw conclusions amd make infrences supported by textual evidence
ELA 5.5.4 Write responces to literature that support judgements with text examples
Activity 2: Dear Diary
Pretend you are Laura and you have just finished workin gin the garden when you overhear the heated argument between Pa and Mr. Scott and Mr. Edwards. What could you tell your diary that you couldn't tell anyone else? Do you want to stay and eat the growing goodness from the garden, or do you want to leave the growing threat of the soldiers? Use examples from the chapter to support your thoughts.
ELA 6.5.3 Write paragraphs or essays with main ideas, supporting details, and a conclusion
ELA 5.5.6 Write short essays; specualte on cause/effect and offer persuasive evidence.
Activity 1: A Whole Year Gone
A year is 365 days long, 366 during leap year. Sun-up is when most people began chores. Chores were 7 days a week, no vacations. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half. On one side label the half-hours starting at 6 am to 7 pm. Fil lin all the hours with a chore. For example, at 7 am - feed the chickens, and gather eggs; 7:30 am feed livestock. When you are done, add up at the time a person spent on chores, then multiply it by the total number of days in a year. With a partner, discuss the total time spent doing something on a farm. Was Pa right when he said, "What's a year amount to?" For a challenge, find out how many minutes one spent in a year just feeding the chickens or milking the cow.
MA 3.5.6 Determine equivalent periods of time, including relationships between and among seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years.
MA 1.5.8 Generate and solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems using whole numbers and decimals in practical situations.
- Social Studies
Activity 1: What Happens on a Farm?
Have the students form groups and give each one some computer time. Have them research the types of chores one did on a farm during Laura Ingalls' time period. Create a list of things they found on the internet versus the things that are talked about in the chapter using the computer program Inspiration.
Technology 5.3.2 generate keywords for a research topic or problem and conduct a search of electronic based sources
Technology 5.3.4 identify and examine oraganizational formats using a technology tool to arrange information; use an oraganizational format to arrange gathered information in a presentation or demonstrate decision-making.
Historical Overview of the ChapterTheme