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A group of 24 second graders from Eastwood Christian School in Montgomery took a field trip to the Pioneer Museum of Alabama on Thursday.

The students had the opportunity to explore the past with a guided tour of the museum’s indoor exhibits that showcased the way Alabama’s pioneers lived, worked and traveled. The exhibits also feature Native American Indians, American, military displays and a Town Village with, a dental office, drug store and other downtown businesses.

The young museum visitors also toured the buildings on the grounds, including the family cabin, the Little Red Schoolhouse and the Demonstration Cabin.

Wendy Patterson, Eastwood Christian teacher, said visiting the Pioneer Museum of Alabama was a fun, learning experience for the young students and for her.

“I have passed the museum many times but have never stopped to visit. This is an amazing museum of pioneer history,” Patterson said.

As for her students, Patterson said after reading “Sarah, Plain and Tall,” a children’s book about a farming family, and, then, having visited the Pioneer museum, the second-graders would have a much better understanding of what pioneer life was like.

“Visiting the Pioneer Museum of Alabama will give them a much idea of what daily life was like for children who grew up on farms years ago and what life was like for pioneer children.”

The students were especially interested to learn pioneer children went to one-room school houses, sat in different kinds of desks and read from different kinds of books,” Patterson said. “They were amazed that there were different kinds of wagons and buggies and and that a coffin was so small.

The children were wide-eyed when they heard that several children often had to sleep in the same bed and walk in the dark of night to the outhouse.

The students were impressed by the work of a blacksmith, the size of a steam engine train and that such good-tasking corn bread could be baked by a fire in a wood stove.

Barbara Tatom, museum director, said the students were attentive and very well behaved.

“Here, at the Pioneer Museum of Alabama, we are always proud to have young people come and learn more about Alabama’s pioneer history, learn from it and gain a greater appreciation for the pioneers’ contributions to our way of life today.”