Richmond Chapt. 5 “Bleeding Kansas” The Territorial Period

I found a lot of this information to be maybe too much for a fourth grade level. We do touch on John Brown, but not to a large extent. I do think though that the diary type information in this chapter would be the most interesting in use in my fourth grade class. We actually have been to the Douglass County Museum in the past in which the volunteer for the museum read a diary entry of a woman from Kansas in which it described her new Kansas home. He had the students then measure out the home and tape it down to show exactly how people lived in such close quarters. Our children today have much different challenges growing up. I believe that it is very important to them to understand how people before them lived and the hardships that they faced.

Richmond Chapt. 4 Trails and Early Transportation

We have already concluded a large study of the Oregon Trail in my classroom this year. We read about all of the different kinds of trails and the chronology of transportation in Kansas. (I am finding that much of the information in this book is in our Kaleidoscope magazines on a much smaller scale and lower level. They really are terrific resources for elementary students!) Some of this chapter would be great to read out loud to my students when studying the trails. I found the diary segments especially interesting since they tell of how life actually was on the trail. We did a great Webquest in which my students had to research the Oregon Trail. They had jobs that made them research things such as their wagon team, route, supplies, and diary entries. They really enjoyed it and learned a lot along the way, including the importance of the South Pass.

Richmond Chapt. 3 Indian Removal and Christian Missionary Efforts

I found this chapter interesting for a few different reasons. This chapter talks about the Neosho Mission, which is not very far from Parsons. In fact, my stepson lives in Chanute, and we take Shaw road to get to his house. So, I have passed the historical marker for this mission repeatedly over the years, so I found it interesting to learn more about it. Then, my husband is part Shawnee Indian. In fact I have his great great grandfathers pension records, and it says that he and his wife were married in Johnson County, Kansas in an Indian ceremony for marriage. I have read before about the Shawnee Mission and wondered if they had anything to do with it since they were in the area during that time period. These are both interesting things that we could discuss when talking about this as a class.

Richmond Chapt. 2 Exploration of the Great Plains

I find the Quivira Spring a very interesting subject. My class has already studied about it this year. We read about it our Kansas Kaleidoscope magazine and we had fun discussing it. I was not aware however that Coronado was actually killed in Kansas. I remember learning about Coronado in 8th grade history, but I never remember there being a tie between him and Kansas. While I do believe that his importance to Kansas is a little above my fourth graders, we do talk about him, what he was in search of, and what it meant to our state so that they have an introduction to this and will be able to master it in later years. J I also find it so interesting that the Spanish were exploring Kansas already in 1541. We focus so much on Lewis and Clark in the 1800’s, which I find it interesting that “whites” had already been here and done exploring. I did find the information on Pike interesting. It seems as though he spent much more time in Kansas exploring than Lewis and Clark, but he often is shunned for calling Kansas the “Great American Desert.”

Richmond Chapt. 1 The Land and Its Native People

I found this chapter to just be a very broad overview of early Native Americans that lived in Kansas. It also talked about the layout of Kansas. I thought that this was pretty basic information, and can’t say that I learned a lot from it. I did find the pueblo outside of Scott City interesting though.
We actually already talk about this information in my fourth grade classroom. We discuss the landforms and geography of Kansas, along with the plant and animal life. It would be interesting to find someone with an arrowhead collection to bring and show the class. When I was a child I attended a rural school. I was always amazed when kids would bring in arrowheads that they had found. I was always jealous and have always wanted to find my own arrowhead.

Research Update

Wow! I haven’t written a research paper since taking Comp. II in college while working on my Bachelor’s degree. Currently I am comparing the research process to childbirth. Once it is over you tend to forget the pain of having done it. But, it is all coming back to me! J The time factor is playing a large part in how well my paper is going. It seems as though whenever I have time to do research, the places where I would like to do it are closed.

To top off the time factor, just this week our local town historian died. He was a walking book of knowledge with many resources that he had collected over the years. While he did donate his collection of history to the local museum, he is not there to help find things of interest in them. The next step in my research process will be to go to the museum and begin going through all of the books and notes that he left.

My Superintendent was a big help though. She provided me with a paper done by WSU that they did recently titled “Bridging the Achievement Gap in Parsons USD 503.” I have skimmed this document, but have not had a chance to totally read it and organize the information that will be relevant to my paper.

I have also found a few books that have been published about Parsons and a calendar with neat information and little tidbits about the history of Parsons’ educational system.

So, I have some leads, but now am just looking for the time to really get it going!