Pioneer Day Covered Wagon Craft

Hello, hello friends!!  Here in the great state of Utah July 24th is a pretty special day.  It is the day we celebrate our pioneer heritage.  I have always had a deep love for early church history and strive to pass that love onto my children.  Because I knew we wouldn't be having our normal family home evening this week we spent our Sunday morning doing a fun Covered Wagon Craft with the kids.

 

All you need to make one of your own is an empty cake mix box, white computer paper, two wood skewers and some Jumbo Craft Sticks from the great people at CraftProjectIdeas.com.

First I cut off the front of the cake mix box and set the piece of cardboard aside.

Then we hot-glued our jumbo craft sticks to our cake mix box, making the base of our wagon.

I have to add...that was Skylar's idea and I thought it turned out SO great :)

Using a small cup, I then cute 4 circles on the leftover cardboard from the cake mix box.  I cut these out and stuck them on each end of two skewers to make our wheels for the wagon.

Finally I just glued a piece of white computer paper on both sides of the wagon box and we had our very own Covered Wagon!

As fun as making our wagon was, the BEST part was playing with it after!

I had Britton go downstairs and get all of our dollhouse furniture.  As were were looking at all of it and picking out the mom and dad to put in the wagon I had a thought.  I told the kids to look at ALL those things in the bucket.  Then I asked them how much they thought they could fit in our covered wagon?

The answer was, obviously, not much!  I explained to the kids this is exactly what the pioneers had to actually do.  They had to leave behind all of their belongings and take only the things they could fit into a wagon.  I think it was great for them to see a visual of tables, chairs, beds and comforts of home...all left behind because they couldn't fit.  

I love when you can see in your kids eyes that they actually are getting it!  We spent an hour making blankets and pillows out of fabric for our "pioneers" and getting them ready for their trek west ;)

Thanks so much for checking out Blue Skies Ahead today and our Covered Wagon Craft!  Have a wonderful Monday and come back again soon :)