Prairie Schooner Craft and R's First Chapter Book

R finally sat through a chapter book.  Not only did she sit through it, she could not wait to find out what happened in the next chapter, so we read the whole book in two sittings.  Pioneer Cat by William H. Hooks is about a nine year old girl traveling with her family from Missouri to Oregon by wagon train.  She finds a cat in Missouri and decides that she has to take her on the trip.  When her mother says that she can take anything that will fit in her box, Kate sees that as an opportunity to take the cat.  This is a nice book about friendship - Kate left behind a good friend in her hometown, meets a new friend on the trail, and also has the friendship of the cat, Snuggs.  I like this book for the detail about the trail too; there is a buffalo stampede, a dangerous river crossing, and a confrontation with Native Americans.  We also get some details about what it is like to be a child on the trail and what it was like to only be able to take some belongings and leave other things behind.  The book is also only nine chapters and sixty-three pages, so it is a nice chapter book for young children.

I made prairie schooners for C and R.  They are nothing fancy, and might fall apart, but they are playing with them a little.  Sigh.  Honestly, they can't really compete with all of the new Christmas toys around here, but they can sit on a shelf and serve as a reminder of our Oregon Trail lessons.  I guess that will have to do for now.

I cut a half gallon milk carton in half.  I used both halves because I made two wagons, but you only need one half if you are making one wagon.

I covered the carton halves with brown paper bags and used masking tape to attach the paper inside the cartons.

Next, I made a little bench for the Oregon Trail emigrants to sit on in their wagon.  I made it by folding a piece of cardboard (from a cracker box) into the shape of a bench.  I used tape and glue to hold it in place.

Then we decided the bench needed a back, so I folded more cardboard and attached it with glue.

I cut straws and attached them with tape to the inside of the wagon.  Florist wire was inserted into each of the straw pieces and shaped to form the frame for the cover. 

I cut another brown paper grocery bag for the cover.  Crumpling it into a ball and then flattening it made it look a little more authentic.

The wheels on this wagon are lids from cans with masking tape wrapped around the rims.  I just hot glued them to the sides of the wagon.  The other wagon I made, has Skippy peanut butter lids for wheels, and they were also hot glued.  It would be nice to make wagons with working wheels, but I wasn't ready for that!

To make the prairie schooners, I mostly followed the directions found at Looledo.  I improvised a bit on a few of the steps.

For those of you with older children, I found this really cool project that includes calculating how much items weigh and figuring out what you would take in your wagon for the Oregon Trail trip.   I'm considering presenting T with the assignment.  I'm sure he will be very excited about it.