Science Technology Reading Engineering Art MATH!
As we integrate our study of Westward Expansion
across the curriculum,
all the above subject areas are included.
MATH:
(Scroll down for Plan B)
Keeping a ledger, making a budget, making expensive decisions, making trades, keeping track of mileage, using map scale, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions - all these skills come in handy (and sometimes save our lives) as we travel the Oregon Trail. It's a good thing the first- through fourth- graders have strong mathematical and problem solving skills!
A Conestoga wagon is bigger but more expensive. $250.
Most wagon groups chose the smaller emigrant wagon for $150.
We wonder if there will be ways to earn money along the trail.
As we travel further along the trail,
we discover that prices go up.
The cost of a pair of oxen doubles!
Plus we have to get new shoes for all our animals.
Most had never used a map scale before.
We figured out that 1 cm = 100 miles.
Using string and a ruler, most of us figured out
that the journey is about 2,100 miles.
Not too far from the actual 2,170 miles!
PLAN B
When we learned that we were going to go home to do school,
this was the story we heard:
Travel and
Fate Card 27B (AKA Plan B)
One mile
past Alkali Slough
Mile 799
July 21
Your wagon train has just set out early in the morning and
has come to the top of a knoll. In the distance on the valley floor is
something of a curiosity. You’re not sure what it is, yet. After two hours of
walking towards it, it appears to be a group of wagons. Yes, it is for sure another wagon train! But
what is it doing out here on the prairie in the middle of the day? Why isn’t it
moving!? Is something wrong. Or could it be a trap!?
(Discuss with your wagon group and decide what you should
do! Should you steer clear or should you stop to see if you should help?)
Fate: Well, while the adults in your group were gathered
around making decisions, the children in your group have started intermingling
with the children in the stalled wagon train. And they’ve discovered
that these children are nice. In fact, they’d like to become friends! They
learn their names…[names of siblings of the first through fourth graders].
Since the children are having so much fun, the adults decide
to find out what’s wrong and discover that this wagon train has been lost for
days and are in dire need of help. The adults make the decision to help them.
The two wagon trains become one long wagon train. Each wagon
gets new family members! And not only that, the two wagon trains are pooling
funds and each wagon gets $500 in their accounts. It’s time to start a new ledger and get
packing. We want to get past the Rocky Mountains before the snow starts flying.
Westward? Ho!!
(That money is going to come in handy! We’ve discovered that
getting supplies is getting more and more expensive the further west we go! And
we’re running low on oxen!)
Distance Learning Math
Here's what happens at Fort Hall:
(as turned in via our distance learning platform)
Who wouldn't buy fox and beaver fur
with that much money in the account!?
I think we'll survive the snowfall in the mountains
and make it to the Willamette Valley!
Real math at its finest!!
