Curated OER
No Place Like Home
Students analyze photographs of high plains sod homes and read accompanying narratives. They then choose one photograph and, using the copy and paste features and simple drawing tools available in Microsoft Word, students identify...
Curated OER
Life in a Sod House: Get a Sense of It
In this history of Nebraska worksheet, students read information about pioneer life in a sod house. Students conduct 4 experiments where they use measurement skills and observational skills to imagine the size, light levels, smell of...
Curated OER
Kindergarten Social Studies Lesson 4
Students examine the lives of children in other places. They listen to a read aloud of Eve Bunting's, Dandelions, and retell the story of the family living in the West. They talk about the sod houses and compare them to the types of...
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Building a Sod House
Ready to be an early settler on the plains? While playing this interactive game, you'll get to build your own sod house ..if ..you have the right answers.
New York Public Library
In Motion: African American Migration Experience: Western Migration: To Kansas
From the extensive site about African-American migrations, this part of the site focuses on Exodusters and African-Americans who moved to Kansas after the Civil War. Read first-person accounts and see photographs of these hardy...
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of American History: Our Story: Life in a Sod House
Imagine moving into a house made out of sod that you and your family had to build in the middle of a prairie! Find great information and activities that will help you understand how it felt to live on the prairie.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: Sodbusters!
From the National Endowment for the Humanities, a lesson plan on sod construction on the American prairie, "Sodbusters!" includes several links to related information and four activities: "Designing a Home," "Sodbusters and Their Homes,"...
Nebraska Studies
Nebraska Studies: Building a Sod House
Here's great information on building sod houses. You can even watch a video of a famous two-story sod house that stood until 1967.
Other
Architeacher: Architectural History and Building Styles
A slideshow that introduces learners to nineteenth-century architectural history by displaying a variety of homes constructed in specific historical styles, such as Greek revival, Queen Anne, Italianate, and Gothic revival.
Library of Congress
Loc: America's Story: The Homestead Act Went Into Effect
This 4-page article discusses the Homestead Act of 1862 and its effects.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: Creating a Home on the Frontier
Making a house a home was a struggle on the plains. This companion essay to the PBS series, Frontier House, describes the problems with getting water, outhouses, and furnishing the sod house.
PBS
Wnet: Thirteen: Frontier Life: "The Little Old Shanty on the Claim"
An essay provided as part of the PBS series, Frontier House, describes the housing options of pioneers on the prairies in eastern Montana.