Caddie Woodlawn is a beautiful story about a young girl growing up in the mid to late 1800s. Based on the story of a real girl, she lives in Wisconsin with her family where she gets along better with her brothers than her sisters. Through her mishaps and adventures with her friends and siblings, she learns about her role as a young lady and how plays a part in her family.
The following read aloud activities were put together as a plan for our Homeschool Book Club. You can read more about how I host that HERE. However, these activities are also fun to do with your family at home. The activities are intended to be completed at the end of the book as a little book celebration. So please use this plan as it best suits you in the season that you are in.
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Discussion Questions
- What is your favorite part?
- Who is your favorite character and why?
- Caddie and her family lived a long time ago. What are some differences in their way of life that stick out to you?
- At the end of the story, Caddies family had to make a choice. What was that choice? And what would you have done?
On the Map
This is a great opportunity to understand where Caddie lived and locate it on a map. We used a US Puzzle and turned it into a scavenger hunt! I’ve had this puzzle for a few years and we put it together all the time! It’s the perfect way to review a map of the United States. It’s large, and the pieces make up the actual shape of the states.
Hide the pieces all around your house or outside (I always love going outside when we can.) As your children bring them to you, begin putting it together. Once it’s complete, point out that Caddie lives in Wisconsin. Show it on the map. You can also locate Boston, where her mother is from.
Ask questions about what it would be like to travel from Boston to WIsconsin? Could they fly or drive? These kinds of questions are always so fun to ask.
Be sure to point out where you live on the map. How far is it from Wisconsin?
Snack – Taste the time period!
One of the moms in our group made a list of a bunch of the different foods that were mentioned in the book. The list included hazelnuts, salt pork, turkey, cranberries, and molasses cookies.
Prepare as many or as little of these as you want! I actually didn’t even know what salt pork was until we made it for book club. It’s not very good at all. (ha!) But it was so fun to try it! I found an easy recipe online, but you have to prepare it 48 hours ahead of time. It’s not hard, and it’s worth the experience if you can.
We were able to talk about why salt pork was so popular during that time period and why it was necessary to prepare it in that way. You can read about salt pork here.
Someone else made the Molasses cookies for our group, but here is a simple recipe if you are on the hunt for one. Molasses is so odd to me, but in a cookie it’s oh-so-good.
All of the other items can come from the grocery store. We didn’t have them all at our group, but I love the fact that any time we do try it, we can still think back to our novel.
Read Aloud
I love when I can read a picture book that relates to our story. Unfortunately, the way our timing worked out during our get together, we didn’t have a chance to read something. I will share what I had hoped to read though.
I went hunting in my own home library for this one. I found a picture book called, “Summertime in the Big Woods”. This picture book is from a series about Laura Ingalls Wilder as a child. The books are precious and easy to read.
Did you know that Laura Ingalls Wilder was also living in Wisconsin during her stories in the “Big Woods”. How is her summer like Caddie’s? How is their summer different from ours? These are all questions I had hoped to chat about with the kids.
If you’d like an alternative for the story time, my other option was to find a book about Abraham Lincoln. There’s a chapter or two that discusses his presidency, and I thought it would be neat to read some history. I considered reading “My Little Golden Book About Abraham Lincoln”. It’s an easy read and very inexpensive.
Raft Challenge
There’s a chapter in the book that Caddie and her uncle ride on a raft. Caddie’s uncle plays a trick on Caddie making it difficult for her to successfully use the raft.
For this activity, I set up a STEM challenge, and it was such a hit! I provided the kids with a basket of supplies: straws, string, masking tape, and sticks from my yard. We talked about how rafts are made, and then I let the children have the freedom to make whatever they wanted. Their goal was to make a raft that a little lego man could float on successfully.
The results were so surprising to me! Every child created something completely different. As they were putting it together, I asked questions. What is your strategy to make this work? Why did you choose straws? What is the string for?
It was summer time when we did this and I set up a blow up pool in our yard filled with water. This is where we tested our rafts. You could use a big tub if you wanted. Want to know something crazy? The most outrageous looking raft was the one that worked the best! This activity went a little longer than I had planned, because the kids just couldn’t stop. They loved building their rafts.
I did stand nearby tearing masking tape for the kids to help them out and keep the building going.
Making Homemade Butter
For the last activity, we made our own butter. Caddie and her siblings churned their own butter. If you have time or the resources, you could share what they might have used to do this. Then, try it yourself. If you’ve never done this – it’s so easy! You have to try it. You’ll need a mason jar and heavy cream. That’s it!
Fill the mason jar half way with cream. I made one for each family. It takes quite a bit of endurance, so sharing the job among the family members made it easier to complete. Put the lid on tight and start shaking the jar with all your might.
This takes a few minutes. When one person was tired, they passed it to someone else in their family. After a couple minutes, you will feel that the jar is not really moving liquid around. That’s because it has turned to whip cream! This is a fun opportunity to put a spoonful in a bowl and add some sugar. I had a bunch of plastic spoons and everyone got a taste. Yum!
Keep on shaking that jar! After a few more minutes, you will start to notice the butter surrounded by buttermilk. The butter actually provided us with a second snack. I added a little salt to the butter and was ready with some saltine crackers. Spread a little butter on the cracker and taste the homemade butter. The kids ate it up!
I labeled each jar with the family name so they could take it home to enjoy.
Want more Book FUN?
We were able to finish all of these activities in about an hour and a half.The kids had so much fun! They loved discussing the books together and the simple activities were engaging and exciting for them.
A small book celebration like this really brings a book to life and we love experiencing the novels we read together in this way. I plan to share all of our book club plans with you, so sign up for my email list below and be notified each time a new one is posted.
You can also check out the growing blog post containing each book we’ve completed already. If you’re a fan of adding to your read alouds in a simple way, I want to encourage you to see the different Read Aloud Experiences I have created. Almost all of them are absolutely FREE! These are created on a chapter-by-chapter basis and create such a unique, hands-on read aloud unit to do together with your family!
