My boys love Historical fiction, and this last year they have been reading the Choose Your Own Adventure version of the Oregon Trail books. As a family, we were going to a wedding out west and decided to hit a few sites along the way. Seeing the boys light up along our adventure as they saw landmarks and cities they had read about in their books was amazing!
If you ever get the chance to take your kids on a trip to a place they have read about – do it! what an adventure! The boys would tell us about the different things they could see and what they KNEW about that location!
We have made this drive several times before but this was the best! Our boys would tell us about the experiences that the Pioneers would go through in the different locations we drove by or stopped to enjoy. They would explain why it would be hard to cross a river or why the pioneers hard to stop more often in the hills than on the plains.
My 7-year-old spent half an hour telling everyone in the car how buffalo chips {dry buffalo dung used for fuel} were used on the trail and what exactly buffalo chips are when his 3-year-old sister said she wanted chips.
For us, an adventure highlight was stopping at Pioneer Park in Omaha. The kids got to see a bunch of sculptures in the form of a wagon train. The detail was amazing. It truly gave them a life experience to see how big the wagons were and what was in and on them. My oldest was amazed at the depth of the ruts the wagons could get stuck in {it was deeper than his knee}. It is one thing to read about history, but it is another to SEE it for yourself!
Have you taken your kids on an adventure somewhere they have read or studied about? Share it with us!
