Making Prairie Soda Biscuits {Engaging Homeschool}

One of the most meaningful ways to bring history alive in your homeschool unit is through food. In Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder frequently describes simple pioneer meals that sustained families living on the frontier. One such staple was prairie soda biscuits—a quick bread made with basic ingredients that were easy to store and prepare.

Catch Up! If you haven’t read all about our first week on the prairie, I would encourage you to go and read my Little House in the Big woods post. This covers everything we did from making nightdresses, to prairie cooking and making button strings. It also gives you a good idea of everything we achieved with our own little house on the prairie renovations!

A Hands-On Lesson for Your Little House on the Prairie Unit Study

In this post, you’ll learn how to make prairie soda biscuits while enriching your Little House on the Prairie Unit Study with history, life skills, and hands-on learning perfect for homeschooling families.

Why Make Prairie Soda Biscuits in Your Homeschool Unit?

Cooking is a powerful teaching tool in homeschooling. When children prepare historical recipes, they don’t just read about the past—they experience it. Making prairie soda biscuits helps students understand pioneer life and limited resource as well as practice practical life skills. This lesson will also allow your children to connect literature to real-world experiences and engage multiple senses for deeper learning

This activity fits beautifully into any homeschool unit focused on American history, pioneer life, or classic literature.

Check out week two! Last week we focused on Farmer Boy. This is the second book in the Little House on the Prairie book set. During the week we did lots of prairie cooking (hasty pudding, making a sour dough starter and some prairie bread) and also made some button lamps, a prairie ladder, and some peg hooks. Gary and the little ones did some gardening in our prairie garden and we tried to make some more of our rag rug.

What Are Prairie Soda Biscuits?

Prairie soda biscuits are a simple quick bread made without yeast. Instead for these, pioneers relied on baking soda for leavening, since yeast was hard to come by on the frontier. These biscuits were filling, inexpensive, and could be made quickly—perfect for prairie families with long days of hard work.

Making Prairie Soda Biscuits: Recipe (Pioneer-Style)

These are called soda biscuits and would be like the scones we make today in England. 

The recipe is simple:

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 3 tbsp. dripping

Preheat oven to 220°C (425°F)

Mix dry, work in fat, add buttermilk.  Do not mix too much, but blend enough to make a ball of dough. Roll and using a mug cut out circles of dough. Place on a baking tray and bake at 210 degrees centigrade for 12 minutes. Serve warm with butter or jam for an authentic prairie experience.

We boiled up some blackberries, which jammed themselves without any additional pectin!  We had this blackberry jam with our just baked, still warm biscuits.

If you’d like a book chock-a-block full of prairie activities, do take a look at my review of My Little House Craft Book. This is where we got this activity from.

Tying Making Prairie Soda Biscuits into Your Little House on the Prairie Unit Study

As part of your Little House on the Prairie Unit Study, you can use this recipe to explore daily life on the prairie, food preservation and scarcity. It is also an interesting lesson on the differences between modern kitchens and pioneer cooking tools!

My little Abigail made some hay sticks with her daddy. If you’d like to know how, click here!

Reflection Questions for Students

After baking, encourage thoughtful discussion with these questions:

1. Why do you think prairie families relied on simple recipes like soda biscuits?
2. How would cooking be different without electricity or modern appliances?
3. What ingredients were hardest for pioneers to obtain?
4. How does making food from scratch help you understand pioneer life better?
5. What modern conveniences do you appreciate more after this activity?

These questions promote critical thinking and deepen comprehension during homeschooling.

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how Thomas learnt to tie different knows in order to make a hammock for his little sister’s rag doll. Click here to read about it!

Hands-On Activities to Extend the Lesson

Enhance your homeschool unit with these engaging activities:

• Math Connection: Double or halve the recipe and practice fractions.
• History Comparison: Research what foods pioneers ate in different seasons.
• Writing Assignment: Have your child write a journal entry as if they were Laura Ingalls describing the biscuits.
• Science Exploration: Learn how baking soda works as a leavening agent.
• Living History: Try baking over a campfire or using cast iron if possible.

Yesterday, the girls made some home-made prairie curtains for our own little house on the (not) prairie. Cliuck, if you’d like to read!

Final Thoughts

Making prairie soda biscuits is more than a recipe. It’s a memorable learning experience. By incorporating this activity into your Little House on the Prairie Unit Study, you create meaningful connections between literature, history, and everyday life. This is the heart of effective homeschooling: learning that is engaging, tangible, and unforgettable.

For more activities please do visit my MEGA Little House on the Prairie Unit Study page. This contains all ten weeks of our summer building our own Little House on the Prairie!