Second Grade Travels the Trail

Second grade has been bustling with activity since we returned from Spring Break.  Our big focus is on the expansion of the United States during the mid 1800s.   We have been looking at maps and reading first hand accounts of traveling on the Oregon Trail.  In pairs, second graders are reading historical fiction from that era, and learning about the experience of walking across the continent and living on the move for months at a time. 

We used trundle wheels and some of our new multiplication/division and measuring skills to find out what walking a mile actually feels like.   As a class, we researched how far a mile is in feet and meters.  We figured out how many clicks of the trundle wheel would be one mile and divided that by the number of students to find out how many clicks each person had to count.  (1 mile or 1609 meters ÷ 23 students = 73 clicks)  We used a calculator; second graders understand the concept but have not yet tackled long division.

Here we are at the starting point.  We used 2 wheels to get more data so everyone had 2 turns.

The students used their imaginations, crossing rivers (the driveway), observing buffalo herds(cars), finding buffalo chips (pine cones & dried mud and grass clumps) and meeting a tribe of Native Americans (the Cardinal drum circle).   We also timed the trip and found we walked at a 1 mile per hour pace.

When one of the wheels broke we had to stop for repairs at the trading post, (aka Tyson House).   We took advantage of this delay and used the time to relax in the shade. A few travelers made music, sang and danced.   

jackets became bonnets

Cheers to celebrate the mile

The drum circle