We are nine and ten year old students at Floresville Elementary School in south Texas.  Last October Mrs. Maurine Walpole Liles came to visit our class and told us the story of Rebecca Garner, her great-great aunt.  We became very interested in pioneers after hearing Rebecca's story.  Next, we went to Pioneer Village in Gonzales, Texas.  We saw log cabins, buildings in the village, visited a blacksmith and learned all about pioneer life.  After that everybody in our class made a pioneer dish or project for pioneer day.  We decided to put some of our projects on the page.  We tried to learn more using the world wide web but found there was very little out there for students our age.  After these experiences we decided to do our web page on pioneer life.

When we started the page we brainstormed a three page list of things we thought other students would like to know about pioneer life.  After that, we started our research on the history of pioneers.  Mrs. Varnon and Mrs. Brown our librarians helped us collect many books.  We wrote out our research and learned we had to revise what we wrote many times.  Finally, we were ready to start typing.  We did most of our typing in Netscape Composer.  Since only two of us had any previous computer skills,  we had to learn all about spell check, fonts, saving, naming files, spacing and everything else that had do do with the typing.  This was not easy!

The next thing we learned was about images.  We found out about scanning and editing our pictures. We used Adobe PhotoDeluxe and Adobe PhotoShop.  Anthony and Carmen learned to write some HTML.  We designed the quizes using an HTML book.  Anthony, Samantha and Carmen learned about making tables and trying to center and align the information.  Katie made clickable images out of the wagon drawing.  Martina and Samantha drew, colored, and scanned the illustrations for "Rebecca of Blossom Prairie".  We all learned what happened when we accidentally clicked on the wrong things and lost all of our hard work.

One of our favorite things was getting our music teacher, Mrs. Linda McDevitt, to help us with the pioneer music.  We found the songs we wanted from several different books we read.  Next, we borrowed a keyboard and plugged it into the computer and Mrs. McDevitt played the songs while we recorded and embedded them into files.

We published our page using Microsoft Front Page.  We were really amazed at our work when we saw our final product.  We hope you enjoyed reading our web page. Many people helped us in our work and we'd like to thank them: our coach, Ms. Rylander, Mrs. Liles who inspired our project, Mrs. McDevitt who played the music, the G/T teacher who loaned us her equpiment and expertise, and Wayne Este' who shared his collection of pioneer tools and toys with us.  Click on our names to learn more about us.

Teachers: click here for a note from the coach

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Hi my name is Anthony.  I live in Floresville, Texas.  I attend Floresville Elementary School. I didn't know a lot about pioneers until I researched pioneers. I like to play tetherball, football, baseball, basketball, swimming, and soccer.  I win a lot of games in tetherball and basketball.  I love to swim and jump off the 12 foot diving board.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi ! My name is Carmen. I am a fourth grader at Floresville Elementary. When my teacher told me about Think Quest I became interested.  After we started this I learned lots of stuff on pioneers. Then we got ready to start typing on the web page.  My favorite subjects in school are Math, Science, and Computer Lab. After five months of working we finally got finished. We all learned a lot on pioneers and computers. What I like best is the pictures we all had to draw.  In the summer I like to swim, race, and party.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi! My name is Martina. I am a fourth grader in Floresville Elementary and I am in Think Quest.  The hardest part to type on the computer was "Jim Bridger".  The words had to come right out of my head.  The most fun part was to take pictures of my corn husk doll.  I did not know a lot about computers but now I do.  My favorite subject in school is Reading.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi everybody, my name is Katie and I live in Floresville, Texas.
I am ten years old and am in the fifth grade.  I am the web spinner for this page. My favorite things to do are explore in my 102 acre pasture, play on my computer, and write storiess. I am looking for an internet pen pal. My favorite kinds of music are rock, metal, and alternative. My favorite bands include Offspring, Bush, Matchbox 20, Marcy Playground and other bands like that. I've been playing on computers since I was just over a year old.  My mom has a web page and after a while she taught me how to make a web page and upload it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi, my name is Samantha.  I am a fourth grade student at Floresville Elementary School.  I am nine years old and I like to draw.  One of my favorite animals is a turtle.  My favorite parts of the day at school are recess and science.  I have a lot of friends.  My favorite food is pizza.  When I joined the Think Quest I did not know anything about computers, now I do!