Pioneer Days

Writing Fluency

Have students take out a blank sheet of paper and push play on the video to the right.  This is a good introduction to the Pony Express riders.  At the end of the video, there is a clip from "The Story of Us" from the History Channel.  This is to get the conversation going: As students transition from learning about indigenous people to "Manifest Destiny"... the history of American transportation takes kids from walking as a Kaweah people did, to wagon trains, to Pony Express, to the transcontinental railroad to the cars and planes of today.    And then... the gold is about to be discovered..