43
Dobbins Elementary hosts Pioneer Day
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.A student got his silhouette drawn at Pioneer Day at Dobbins Elementary School March 6.
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Dobbins Elementary students played horseshoe pitching during Dobbins' Pioneer Day.
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Students lined up to learn how to make bread at Pioneer Day.
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Dobbins Elementary students played jacks at Pioneer Day March 6.
Photo
Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Students at Dobbins Elementary played Cat's Cradle at Pioneer Day March 6.
By TIM CLEVELAND
In a continued effort to use games and activities to help children learn, Dobbins Elementary set up Pioneer Day on March 6.
The more than 40 fourth-grade students dressed up as pioneers and participated in activities in the school’s gym that were done many years ago by pioneers. The boys wore various hats and cowboy boots, while the girls wore long dresses and bonnets.
Elaine Morlan and Sharyn Dimuzio were the main organizers of the event. Morlan said it was tied into what the students have learned in social studies class.
“It supports what they’ve learned about pioneers and the core common curriculum about different kinds of things that they have to show for that,” she said.
Morlan said she learned of the event more than 20 years ago.
“I had heard and read something similar to this they were doing on a different level,” she said. “I thought we can do that here. It’s grown and changed, but we start out in the morning. We have nine different stations that are round-robin.”
The students had a busy schedule for Pioneer Day. The nine stations, which were set up in the gym, included butter making, bread making, silhouettes, sand art, Cat’s Cradle, a three-game station with threaded button, marbles and horseshoe pitching, pioneer school, bear claw necklaces and pomander balls.
In addition to rotating between the stations, the students also orked on crafts.
“They had nine choices for crafts,” Morlan said. “They voted on what crafts they wanted to do. They picked a top five and the teachers tried to give them at least two of their three choices.”
Two different square dances were offered in the activity room and the students also looked at a pioneer suitcase brought in by the Arms Museum.
“They have a lot of artifacts,” Morlan said of the former home of Olive and Wilford Arms, located at 648 Wick Avenue in Youngstown. “They have a log cabin set up in the basement. You can go through Wilford Arms’ house. You can see how they lived during that era.”
Morlan said the parents and other volunteers deserve a lot of credit for setting up Pioneer Day.
“This would not be possible at all without the volunteers we have,” she said. “They come and lend a hand because you can’t do this by yourself with all the stations they have to rotate through.”
Morlan said she felt the students benefited from Pioneer Day.
“They get to see what it was like to be a pioneer in a small way,” Morlan said. “They’ve read about a lot of these things. This lets it come to life. They have also gone to Hill Farm and Village in Bath, Ohio, on a field trip earlier this year. They can have a better idea of what it was like in the 1800s. They have things like weaving, candle making, a blacksmith. They get to experience making bread and butter.”
Fourth-grader Cole Wern said he enjoyed Pioneer Day very much.
“It’s fun,” he said. “I think they [the pioneers] do Cat’s Cradle and jacks and they do horseshoes and they play a lot of games.”