Your cart is currently empty!
Nebraska state study
Heading into our Nebraska State Study I knew Nebraska was the cornhusker state. Aaaaaannnnnd that’s it. I went into research mode and found some cool events and fun ideas. Then I checked my library and found half a dozen or so books, and put together our Nebraska state study for our geography lessons.
(there are affiliate links in here, huh now that I’m done writing there actually aren’t any)
What all we used for our Nebraska state study
- Nebraska state printable (over on the subscriber page, join my newsletter and get access)
- United States notebooking pages (you get a coupon for this in the Welcome series for my newsletter)
- Nebraska book list (keep reading)
- Kool-Aid Cookies (since I found out Kool-Aid was invented there)
Nebraska book list
This was originally its own post, but there is no reason for that, so I present to you the book list:
Sometimes you head to the library to look for books for your geography lessons, and you find this amazing list. Sometimes you head to the library and you find some okay books. Then there are times like what happened with the Nebraska book list, and you find an epic story that your family talks about forever. So, with that in mind to add to our collection of books lists, I give you the Nebraska book list.
(there are affiliate links in here)
And don’t worry, you’ll be able to figure out which one became the epic story that we are still talking about months later.
NEBRASKA BOOK LIST- FICTION
- Arbor Day Square– I loved this book, it was such a cute story of how Arbor Day started.
- Going North– Sadly this book was checked out when I went by the library, but I’m hoping to go back and check this book out to read about a story of an African American family moving North and the struggles of traveling through segregated South.
- The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Popcorn in Nebraska and Quit and Came Back– This book made us all laugh so much. It’s hilarious and in the same vein as American Tall Tales.
- Elsie’s Bird– I love Jane Yolen books, while she’s probably most famous for her “How Do Dinosaurs” series, before that became an insane hit, she wrote amazing lyrical books like this one. Elsie struggles with her move to the Nebraska territory, but her bird helps her cope, until one day something happens to her bird.
- The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard– A fictionalized event of a real storm that happened in Nebraska and how the children survived it.
- Prairie Friends– I love stories like this of people adapting to a new home, it’s a great book to read for kids who’ve recently moved to see others have gone through the same thing
NEBRASKA BOOK LIST- NONFICTION
- Beaver Steals Fire– This is the story we were laughing at so much. I love folk tales and if I can find some I’m going to get every single one of them out of my library. This story explains how the animals all worked together to steal fire for man. The thing is, there’s this whole other side story of how Snake eats Frog, and the entire time Frog is telling Snake, “Quit. Quit.” Until he’s completely swallowed. It weirded all of us out, and I had the hardest time keeping a straight face as I read it out loud to the kids. It was made even worse as my kids reacted to the story
- Mammoth– If we hadn’t had the Beaver Steals Fire story, this would be the book my kids would still be talking about. The book follows a mammoth family until they die suddenly because of the ice age, and then fast forwards thousands of years when the frozen mammoth was found. It’s a great story, and I think if the kids were younger and just went with the explanation, it wouldn’t have thrown them so much, but it did
- Nebraska– Nice general information book
- Pioneer Girl: Growing Up On the Prairie– We did not read all of this, but it’s in the same vein as Litle House on the Prairie
- This Strange Wilderness: the Life and Art of John James Audubon– Again it was a longer book than I wanted to read all of, but the illustrations are amazing (not too surprising given the topic)
- In the New World– I love this style of book, where two different time periods are compared
Custer’s Last Battle: Red Hawk’s account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn– I LOVE Paul Goble’s artwork and pretty much everyone of his books I’ve read, this was no exception> Sigh, this should be over on Montana….
Quick Facts on Nebraska
This is where I went to find out a bit more about the state of Nebraska
All right let’s get down to our Nebraska notebooking pages
I only had four mini-books for our Nebraska state study. So, first here you go:
- Deary Diary- My diary for the School Children’s Blizzard
- How I brought fire to Man- This was based on a native tale explaining how beaver brought fire to man (I’m blanking on the tribe, and the book is back at the library), the kids had so much fun rewriting the story
- My Arbor Day Park- I learned Nebraska was the creator of Arbor Day, we found an adorable book all about the start of Arbor Day
- Mammoth Dig Site- We’ve done a couple of different versions of a dinosaur dig in my many years of blogging, I really don’t know which version I linked to with this, but their challenge was to draw what they found in our dinosaur dig
Nebraska videos
I realize you may not be able to get the same books I found, and it gets a bit price prohibitive to buy all the books for every single state or country you study.
This was more of a storyteller rendition of the same events.
Oh my goodness, I’ve actually found the same version of Beaver Steals Fire as read by a couple of teens.
I must share this with my kids now!
Darn, it looks like that story has been taken down.
Now for Arbor Day.
Totally gonna admit, I find the owl’s voice a little too perky.
And finally, the Mammoth Dig Site
Kool-Aid cookies, because Kool-Aid was created in Nebraska
- 1 2/3 cups sugar
- 1 1/4 cups butter (very important I think I was short on butter and substituted coconut oil, it was not a good 1 to 1 substitute)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups of flour
- 2 Kool-Aid flavor packets (I chose something red because I like red)
I don’t have any in-process pictures because they all look the same, and it doesn’t really add anything.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
- Cream together butter and sugar.
- Add eggs.
- Add salt and baking soda, then slowly add in the flour.
- Mix Kool-Aid into the dough. (I think if you are just doing one flavor, then you could mix the Kool-Aid into the flour to make mixing it all throughout easier)
- Drop spoonfuls onto your baking sheet. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. I think I went more toward 12 minutes.
My cookies spread a lot. I’m pretty sure it was because I substituted coconut oil for butter. But they tasted good.
Oh, and very important, don’t use a plastic bowl because the Kool-Aid will stain.
And that’s our Nebraska unit study. Nice and straightforward. We’re reading about Denmark right now and my kids are having a blast teasing me about one of the stories and saying, “It’s almost as bad as the ‘Quit, quit’ from Beaver steals fire.”
Sigh, I can’t win.
Leave a Reply