On Friday, we took our learning to a new level when we had our Pioneer Day.
Students started the day out by playing Oregon Trail on the computer. The kids were shocked when they saw just how much food was needed! We had a lot of people scrambling to try and get more food! Next we took some time to research what a school day for pioneer children looked like. We created a list and were just shocked at some of the rules for both students and the teacher. It was determined that school today is WAY more fun! Students sat down to a penmanship lesson where they practiced cursive writing with their fancy feather pencils. They were also working hard to maintain that posture that we required in pioneer school. That proved to be very tricky! Students had fun writing our cursive letters as well as tickling themselves with their feather. Up next was our yummy snack of corn muffins. We sat in a circle and passed around a jar containing the ingredients for our homemade butter. Students listened to some Little House on the Prairie read aloud while passing the jar around. It didn't take long before our butter took shape! We sprinkled in a little salt to help with the taste and smeared it on our muffins. Students were begging for "just a little more" butter pretty quickly! To round out our day, we split into family groups. We taped out a rectangle that was the same size as a covered wagon. We were all amazed at just how small of a space this was! How in the world would we fit all that we need in that space? Students then took a packing list and began planning for a trip in the covered wagon. Their goal was to stay below 2,000lbs. as this was all that the wagons could carry. Very quickly students remembered the intense need for food that they saw on The Oregon Trail game. It was a lot of fun to listen to them planning out what items were useful and which were not. Many students wanted to take this list home to work on this project. If they finish up a packing list, please send it in for a small prize! Overall, we had a blast investigating the pioneer life a little more closely. Please take a look at our pictures below!
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