Montgomery students travel 55 miles back in time
Posted at 6:05 pm on Thursday, March 16, 2023
- Jane Treadwell | Messenger students from Eastwood Christian School enjoy fresh baked cornbread at the Alabama Pioneer Museum.
A group of 24 second graders from Eastwood Christian School in Montgomery took a field trip to the Alabama Pioneer Museum on Thursday.
Students had the opportunity to explore the past with a guided tour of the museum’s indoor exhibits that showcase how Alabama pioneers lived, worked and traveled. Exhibits also feature Native American Indians, Native Americans, military exhibits, and a town village, a dental office, pharmacy, and other downtown businesses.
Young museum visitors also toured the buildings on the grounds, including the family cabin, the Little Red School and the Demonstration Cabin.
Wendy Patterson, Eastwood’s Christian teacher, said the visit to the Alabama Pioneer Museum was a fun and educational experience for the young students and for her.
“I have passed the museum many times, but I have never stopped to visit it. This is an amazing museum of pioneer history,” Patterson said.
As for her students, Patterson said after reading “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” a children’s book about a farming family, and then visiting the Pioneer Museum, the second-graders would have a much deeper understanding. well what was the life of the pioneer. like.
“Visiting the Alabama Pioneer Museum will give them a great idea of what everyday life was like for kids who grew up on farms years ago and what life was like for pioneer kids.”
The students were especially interested in learning pioneer children went to one-room schoolhouses, sat at different types of desks and read from different types of books,” Patterson said. “They were amazed that there were different types of wagons and buggies. and that a coffin was so small.
The children’s eyes were opened when they heard that some children often had to sleep in the same bed and walk home in the dark of night.
The students were impressed by a blacksmith’s work, the size of a steam engine train, and that such well-crafted cornbread could be baked over a fire in a wood stove.
Barbara Tatom, the museum’s director, said the students were attentive and very well behaved.
“Here at the Alabama Pioneer Museum, we are always proud to have young people come and learn more about Alabama’s pioneer history, learn from it, and gain a greater appreciation for the pioneers’ contributions to our way of life. today.”
