Teaching about the Oregon Trail

This semester, I'm teaching third grade classes in both of our homeschool groups all about the Oregon Trail. I have always found that topic fascinating and am awed by the pioneers who suffered so much to follow their dreams. I don't believe I would have ever wanted to do what they did - walk 2,000 miles across an unknown and foreign country, drinking muddy river water to quench my thirst, watching babies and children be buried, trying to keep my children warm and fed and alive.... all to live a harsh and isolated life!!! If it were just me, I would perhaps be willing to suffer greatly for a dream. But to see my children suffer.... no, I could not do that. Some families did have good experiences and to read their stories is truly inspiring! Many made it across relatively unscathed.... except that they would have seen others suffering and so many, many, many graves. Other families fared much worse. I read that 1 in 11 people who ventured on the trail died on the journey and many of them were children. In the end, for many, it wasn't worth it. They didn't know, until it was too late, how hard it was!

I'm sparing the third graders much of the tragic, gory details of the sad stories, but we are learning much of the geography, daily routines, adventures, hardships, interactions with the Native Americans, and interesting facts along the way. It has been easy to plan activities, games, lessons and everything through the plethura of online resources and library books available. One of the favorite things for my class is the Oregon Trail game we play at the end of each class - no, not the computer game. I drew a large map of the trail that I posted in front of the classroom. I divided the class into two teams, two traveling families. At the end of each class, we continue the game in which each "family" answers questions to move forward on the trail. Sometimes they pull a card with a hardship like an ox dies or a wheel breaks and they have to stay put. Other times, they get fair weather or fresh meat and they advance more. My kids love seeing their wagons progress on the big map! And each week, we pick up the game where we left off. At the end of the 8 weeks, hopefully at least one of the families will have made it to Oregon City!

One website that I found really interesting is
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.n.trailarchive.html
Here you can read full texts of several diaries and memoirs of pioneers who made the trip west. Very fascinating reading! Particularly good reading when feeling like we have it hard as homeschool moms and overwhelmed in our busy lives!