Fun family home evening idea

Because of the upcoming July 24th and the pioneer significance of that date, we had a fun Family Home Evening on Monday night. First we talked about Pioneers and sang pioneer songs, then we played a game that was in the July Friend. Afterwards we made our very own covered wagons. When we played the game that was included in the July issue of the Friend, everyone finished the game and my piece came in last. I was still on the trail when everyone else had finished. It was a perfect lead into explaining to the children that not everyone was able to finish the journey. Some had to be left behind (death). Thankfully it was MY piece that was left on the trail. My children were 3 and 5 years old and they made the covered wagons all by themselves. We took a Twinkie. 4 vanilla wafers for the wheels. a 4X4 piece of paper for the cover. 2 Toothpicks that were pointed at both ends for the axels. Put one end of the toothpick and poke into one vanilla wafer (we used a generic brand and it didn't crack or break). Poke the toothpick with the vanilla wafer through the paper, into the twinkie and out through the other side of the twinkie. You poke it through the oposite side of the paper and through another Vanilla wafer. You do this for both ends of the twinkie. Easy, not messy. Something the children could do on their own. The hardest part of the whole project was me NOT eating a twinkie. I solved this by not making one for myself and of course I couldn't eat the little girls' wagon.

What a cleaver idea!~ -Sherrie