Education Programs
Mission
The YCHS Education Committee’s mission is to engage, share, and demonstrate the history and heritage of Yamhill County. To that end, we invite schools, homeschool students, and families to visit the Heritage Center in McMinnville to experience our local history first-hand. Appointments are required to participate in our Pioneer Days and Wagon to the Schools programs.
Pioneer Days
Pioneer Days is designed with a focus on Oregon History, including travel on the Oregon Trail and daily life experiences of early settlers of Oregon. The curriculum is intended for groups aged 9-10 and will comply with Oregon State Standards for 4th-grade history.
It is a program that allows students to experience for themselves activities that children would have encountered over 100 years ago. Students will attend Hutchcroft School, a historic one-room schoolhouse built in rural Yamhill and relocated to the Heritage Center, for an 1880s style lesson. They will also experience exploring a covered wagon, replica cabin, and other historically accurate hands-on activities. The covered wagon is a full-sized replica for students to learn about and explore. The hand-on activities are offered on a rotational schedule dependent on the availability of volunteers, the season, and weather.
Potential hands-on activities include:
- Candle Making
- Woodworking with antique tools
- Clothes Washing
- Music
- Observing the Blacksmith at their trade
This is a volunteer-run program and the activities offered will be dependent on who is available on the date of your appointment.
The students of public, private, and homeschool groups from Yamhill County are our top priority and therefore have first opportunities for our Pioneer Days program appointments. If there are any openings still available after the end of February, we will contact those groups who have expressed interest in the order that they made their request.
To help us sustain our program there will be a $5.00 charge per student. Chaperones and teachers are free. Payment is by group and payable by either checks made out to the Yamhill County Historical Society or payment via credit card.
Please contact Moira Cleary at events@yamhillcountyhistory.org for more information to schedule. This program will be offered on Tuesdays and Fridays for the 2024-2025 school year.
Traveling Wagon Program
As an alternative Pioneer experience, our Traveling Wagon Program allows us to bring our covered wagon replica directly to the schools of Yamhill County. This program is designed with a focus on traveling the Oregon Trail and the daily life of an early settler.
Students will:
- Learn about the covered wagon and explore the interior.
- Sit on a buffalo robe and discern the uses of antique tools
- Work on penmanship with slates and quill
Other experiences may also be available, such as using a tripod for cooking, using buckets and yokes, demonstrations in the use of flint and steel, or a blacksmith with a portable forge. Programs would begin in the morning and can run for up to 4 hours. Each class will spend 45 minutes rotating through 3 stations with 15 minutes to reset and sanitize between classes. Up to 4 classes can participate in a single day.
As a requirement for this program, there must be parking accommodations for our covered wagon replica. These accommodations MUST include 1) parking for a large trailer that is 2) near a covered area that is 3) tall enough (about 10 ft clearance) to fit our wagon under.
There will be a $200.00 charge for us to bring the wagon to your school.
Please contact Moira Cleary at events@yamhillcountyhistory.org for more information to schedule.