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A Pioneer Field Trip
By Peter Olsen, age 9

The homeschoolers of Desert Hills Christian School spent the day at Pioneer Living History Museum on Saturday, November 6, 1999. It is an old-fashioned place with buildings from the 1800's.

A nice lady named Sharon Cullers took us on a tour and taught us about the life and times of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Laura Ingalls Wilder is the famous woman who wrote the Little House stories.

There were Civil War reenactments happening on that same day. We walked around and saw the camps of the Union and Confederate soldiers. A guy in a red coat who was pretending to be a British soldier came and told us about the kind of rifles they were using.

We went into a one room schoolhouse and sat at the old school desks. Our teacher talked about Laura Ingalls Wilder. We had recess and played old-fashioned games. We rolled hoops around, the boys played tug of war, and the girls played jump rope.

After school we went to see an old log house from the 1800's. It reminded me of Laura's first house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin.

We watched a Civil War reenactment. There were a lot of people shooting. When it ended, we went to the blacksmith shop. The blacksmith showed us how they used to make tools.

After lunch we had a dance. It was a special kind of dance called the Virginia Reel. Some of the Civil War people including some ladies wearing hoop skirts danced with us.

Then we walked to another house where we did old-fashioned activities on the front porch. We made our own handmade ropes, candles, and butter. The candlemaking was my favorite part. The yummiest thing we did was the butter making. We put the butter on bread and ate it.

It was fun to see and do the same things that we have been studying in school. Pioneer Living History Museum is an excellent place for people of all ages to learn about history.

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