Kids get crafty at ‘Christmas on the Prairie’

Christmas is a special time for many.

It means color and creativity.

So, when a busload of Comanche Elementary School fourth graders entered the old one-room Blue Beaver School No. 61 at the Museum of the Great Plains grounds, 601 NW Ferris, they stepped into the past to immerse themselves in a “Christmas on the Prairie.”

Teacher Autumn Hawkins said the annual program put on by the museum is a great way for students to live some history.

“We’ve been studying Christmas around the world and thought it would be neat to learn about it in Oklahoma’s past,” she said. “It ties in really well with our social studies lessons.”

Inside the school Thursday morning, tables were lined with students, teachers and even some parents creating Christmas crafts to decorate the traditional fresh-cut pine tree and the old-school impromptu variety via a tumbleweed. Hawkins said the latter was something she and her students were surprised by.

“No,” she said, “we didn’t know about that.”

At one table, students sat together stringing long strands of popcorn on thread to lace around the tree. The chatter offered sounds of bubbling life as all worked together to create.

Dusty Myhand showed himself a quick learner while using water and flour mixed into a paste and red and green strips of construction paper to create a colorful paper chain to wind around the tree. While focused and exacting with his task, he said it was a good time.

“It’s pretty fun,” he said.

That’s a sentiment that bubbled throughout the different stations set up.

At one table, Wyatt Barkley finished wrapping a star shape in green yarn. With a big smile, he showed pride in his completed achievement. He might even make one for his family tree but this one would stay behind.

“I’m probably going to put it on that tree,” he said while not discounting consideration for the lonely tumbleweed.

With her eyes fixed-focus on affixing her green strands of yarn onto a small piece of wood, Matalynn Baldwin was creating her own small Christmas tree. She said it’s similar to projects she and her mom participate in with their free time.

“I do crocheting, too,” she said. “I’m going to take it home and put it on our tree.”

These kids embodied the hopes Hawkins had with bringing them to enjoy a morning of “Christmas on the Prairie.”

“They seem to be enjoying it,” she said.

Soon after an hour of crafts were completed, the class would head inside the museum to tour it and explore more about Southwest Oklahoma’s history.

Baldwin said she looked forward to it.

“It’s much more fun than school,” she said. “It’s still learning, though.”