Introduction



Imagine you are a young, happy child enjoying your life of play, work and family. You spend your days working with your pa on the farm and playing in the woods with your sister's Mary and Carrie and dog, Jack. Your family comes to visit you often and one of your favorite pasttimes is listening to your pa play music on the fiddle. [|Listen to Pa's Music Here]

One morning you wake up to hear your pa has decided he wants to move your family from your cozy cabin in Wisconsin and take you on an unpredictable journey through unsettled land to Kansas. What will await you once you reach Kansas? Noone knows. Will you know anyone once you reach Kansas? Noone at all. Will you be able to go back to Wisconsin one day and see all of your family you left behind? Noone knows.

Why can you not go back? You may not be able to go back because you are living in the year 1869 and you must travel by [|covered wagon]to your new home.

Who is taking on this unpredictable journey? A little girl named, Laura Ingalls. Her story has been told all over the United States in many different forms. There have been movies, [|television shows]and even [|broadway musicals]. However, the most popular way that her story has been told is in a series of Historical Fiction books written by Laura herself! " Historical fiction is a story that is set in the past. Some elements of the story are true, others are not. Laura's family did have a little house on the prairie and Laura wrote her book based on what she knew about that time." ([])

Through our LitTrip we are going to have the chance to listen and read a historical fiction novel, investigate the places the family visited through a Google Earth Trip, research the different landforms found in Laura's journey and create a final project to present to our entire class!!

To get us started let us view a [|trailer of the book], [|listen to the first chapter], and [|read parts of the book on our own online]!

As we begin our Lit Trip, I want you to pretend you were a young child setting on a journey across the country with just a simple covered wagon, few supplies, and just your family for comfort. What are you feeling? What would you be scared about? Or are you excited? Please respond with a short paragraph about how you would feel if you were in Laura's place right now.