Culminating several weeks of study on pioneers, all 4th grade students participated in “Pioneer Week.” Highlights from the week consisted of Pioneer Day, a presentation by Mountain Man Scott Sorensen, and a visit to the “American Beauty” exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum.

During Pioneer Day, students participated in simulated pioneer events such as:
Sod house construction, gold panning, punched tins, cross-stitching, candle making, and pioneer games. Students were able to use their golden nuggets found during gold panning at the general store to purchase supplies. Pioneers enjoyed flapjacks, but had to be careful to follow law and order due to the presence of Sheriff Ed and Deputy Sheriff Bruce.

Before the pioneers settled in Arizona and the west in general, mountain men made their way into Arizona trapping beaver pelts for the popular top hat of that time period. Williams, Arizona is named after mountain man Bill Williams. Present day mountain man, Scott Sorenson, visited all 4th graders on Wednesday, February 11th. Scott is an author with his own book about mountain men. Scott wore authentic mountain man clothing, told tall tales, showed animal pelts, played the dulcimer, sung folk songs common to that era, and showed slides of mountain men.

On Friday, February 13th, students attended the American Beauty exhibit at Phoenix Art Museum. Because photography was not common until after the Civil War, much of the American landscape and people of the day were captured only by the paintbrush of artists. These beautiful landscape paintings lured pioneers to the west and created the need for environmental preservation, thereby starting the National Park Service. This artwork also helped shaped America’s image of itself in those early years of the nation.

“American Beauty” included America's best in a visually stunning exhibition of painting and sculpture from the period in which American art was born and came into its own; from the late 1700s to the early 1900s. Beginning with America's earliest homegrown talent, John Singleton Copley, the exhibition includes 92 masterpieces by such American greats as John Singer Sargent, Gilbert Stuart, Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, Frederic Church, William Merritt Chase, Albert Bierstadt, the Peale family, Robert Henri, and many more.