Time for our 3rd annual pioneer unit! We love this unit so much and look forward to it all year. When we did this unit for the first time in 2018 it really changed me and gave me a deep desire to homeschool my kids full time. Each year we have had some over lap on some of the activities and also some that were unique to that year.
Each year we pick some of our own pioneer ancestors to represent and learn more about.
This year Landon is representing Thomas Bingham – his 4th great grandfather.
Porter is representing Erastus Bingham Sr. (Thomas Bingham’s father), his 5th great grandfather.
Evelyn is representing Susannah Hawkins, her 3rd great grand-aunt. She chose to represent Susannah because she was 6 years old, just like Evelyn, when she crossed the plains.
Roxanne is representing Sally Ann Bybee, her 4th great grandmother.
There is a funny reason why Roxanne chose to represent Sally. First, I have to tell a little back story… towards the beginning of 2019 (when she was 2 1/2), Roxanne invented an imaginary husband for herself. His name is Josh.
When we were watching General Conference a couple months after she invented Josh, she told us that Josh was singing in the Tabernacle Choir. During one of the songs, we asked her which guy was Josh and she didn’t hesitate when she told us that it was the guy with the black glasses and the mustache. haha.
And here we are a year and a half later and Josh is still very much a part of her imaginary life. Haha. She talks about him all the time. I secretly hope that when she grows up and gets married for real that she marries a guy named Josh. …. or if his name is something else, I’m just going to call him Josh anyway. haha.
Anyway, back to the reason why she chose Sally. When I was listing off all of her options of female pioneer ancestors, we saw that Sally’s husband’s name was Joshua. That sealed the deal. She was instantly sold on wanting to represent Sally, so she could be married to Josh. haha.
And then when I was learning more about Sally and Joshua I discovered that they had a granddaughter (their son, Joshua’s, daughter) named Roxanna! I had no idea that we had any ancestors that were named Roxanna so that was pretty neat and Roxanne was pretty excited to learn that too. Too bad Roxanna’s husband’s name was William, not Josh. haha.
I chose to represent Cecelia Munch, my 4th great-grandmother. As part of our Sweden/Denmark trip last fall, Jershon and I (and my parents) got to see the farm (well, just the land) where Cecelia was born.
For day 1 of our pioneer unit, we figured out what supplies we are going to need for our long journey and we packed our wagon.
