2. The children should follow the family's journey on a map from Sweden to Minnesota, noting all of the train stops on the way. Discuss the problems associated with the journeys and the different modes of transportation used.
3. This story also provides an opportunity to introduce to the children that groups of immigrants often settled together in a particular area. Why do they think they did this? Could they think of both positive and negative results of people of the same nationality settling together in one area?
4. The Long Way Westward ends with the family meeting their relatives when they get off the train. The class or a group of students might want to write another story of this family settling in their new land. They could write an account of the main character, Carl Erik, meeting Indians, seeing an Indian village, or adjusting to other children in school who don't speak the same language.
5. Tell the children that the next story they will hear is based on a true story about an African-American family with three sons who left Kentucky in 1878 to go to Nicodemus, Kansas, a black community. This story is an interesting example of one the thousands of African-American pioneers who left the South after the Civil War. The teacher should introduce the Homestead Act which promised free land to anyone who was willing to settle the West. The story tells how this family lived in a dugout until they could secure the land. As the story is read the teacher should point out Kentucky and Kansas on a physical map. How might the terrain be different in these two states? Discuss with the children how and why these families lived in dugouts (prairie, no lumber, and possibly no money to get wood for houses). Talk about the hardships these families endured and how the Indians helped them in the winter. Add on to the chart started in the previous lesson. What did the settlers learn about the Indians in this story?
6. In this story the father left his three young motherless boys for a year while he staked a claim for land. Have the children chart what the three boys did without their father for food and taking care of a younger three-year-old brother. What did they do when the prairie fire came?
7. Have the children compare the three African-American children's trip west with Carl Erik's trip. Have them role play parts from each and make murals. Discuss whose trip was most difficult, the most fun, and the most interesting. Have them give reasons justifying their answers. Have an awards ceremony giving each story character an award. What should each award say about each of the characters in these three books?
2. Children can learn a brief history and words to the following songs found in Kathleen Krull's Gonna Sing My Head Off! American Folk Songs for Children : "Down in the Valley," "Oh, Susanna," "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain," and "Sweet Betsy from Pike."
3. Children could make their own quilts either with paper squares, triangles pasted on a bulletin board, or they can use fabric crayons on a white square cloth. Parent volunteers could sew them together as a class friendship quilt.
4. The children could make a class covered wagon for the reading corner of the room. A large refrigerator box could be the wagon with cloth or butcher paper over wire for the canvass top. Cardboard wheel could be made.
5. A pioneer museum could be set up on a table in the room using things the early settlers might have used in their homes: quilts, butter churn, bellows, iron kettles, fireplace tongs, candle molds, and so forth.
6. Another use for discarded or outgrown clothing was the rag rug which added warmth and cover to the pioneers cold bare floors. Invite someone who braids rugs to demonstrate to the class how they braid the rugs. The children could try braiding long narrow pieces of felt. As a class this could be made into a chair pad.
7. Have the class make candles from candle molds or using the dipping method.
8. Bring in pieces of dried corn husks so that the children can try to make corn husk dolls using string. Invite someone who makes corn husk dolls to demonstrate the craft.
9. Take the children on a visit to a museum, or to an old house that has many of the tools the early pioneers might have used. If not, show videos or filmstrips showing pioneer life and utensils.
10. Have the class dictate a log or journal about a fictitious pioneer family. As a class have them decide where the family will be leaving from, what method of transportation they will use, what dangers they encounter and what happens when they reach their destination. Pictures can be made for each journal entry. This journal can also be tape recorded by the children. The journal may be shared with another class.
11. Make a class Pioneer ABC book with each child contributing ideas for the various pages. The children could illustrate their ideas to go with the words. Definitions or sentences could be given for each page.
12. Have a group of children write and act out a skit about a particular aspect of pioneer life such as getting ready or settling down for the night.
13. As a culminating activity have a "Pioneer Day" where the children can dress up as pioneers and display the things they have made, collected, or written about pioneer life. They could demonstrate crafts, play pioneer games, and sing pioneer songs mentioned previously.