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Cade and I are beginning a unit on the Pioneers. We signed up in January to do the online Westward Ho project and have been reading up on the trials and tribulations that faced the American pioneers.

This week’s assignments were to establish our pioneer identities and purchase supplies for our five month journey from Independence, Missouri to Willamette Valley, Oregon. We also made a small replica wagon to store our ’supplies’ in.

Once again, Cade will say that he doesn’t like arts and crafts, but these pictures tell a different story. He was so proud of his wagon. I even overheard him showing it to his Grandma this morning.

I gathered a small box, coat hangers, material for the covered part of the wagon, popsicle sticks, dowel, tape and glue. We began by cutting off the flaps of the box and some wheels.

Then we poked holes through the wheels.

Then we added the wheels using the dowel.

We glued the popsicle sticks to the sides of the wagon.

I should have put down newspaper because you’ll never know how much it bothered Cade to have this drip of glue touch the table. All work had to stop while he cleaned it up.

I cut the hook off of the coat hangers and straightened them out and then Cade attached them to the inside of the wagon to make the hoops.

Then we added the cover. Cade is sewing the back of the cover so we can get the gathered closure that is prominent in the covered wagon’s look.

Slow and steady wins the race.

Almost done….

Ta-da!! Isn’t it adorable?

Here it is close up. Cade kept insisting that if he were a pioneer boy, he would sit inside the wagon for the whole trip and not walk the whole way. I tried to explain that that would probably make him sick. But he insists that it looks to fun to miss out on.

I wish I could actually duplicate the experience somehow. That would really be cool.

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