2 suggestions on "How to be a pioneer"
(by Karen in Phoenix)
Suggestion # 1.
"I can be a modern-day pioneer".

I plan on doing the idea suggested earlier to pull fact/story/song cards out of a bag. My facts will actually be ways to be a modern-day pioneer. Here is my list:

Discover a cure for cancer...(pioneers in medicine)
Learn a new language
Be the first in your family to go to college
Be the first to be sealed in the temple
Break your genealogy line wide open
Join the Church
Go on a mission to China
Be successful in establishing a family routine of reading scriptures daily
Being a willing worker in Church--accepting callings
Move to an area where the Church is small
Be the first Bishop/RS President in space
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My songs are:
"Come, Come, Ye Saints" as they walk in. (I may bring my harmonica and attempt to play)
"To Be a Pioneer"
"The Handcart Song"
"Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel" (doing the echoes of the chorus with them). We will sit around a fake campfire on the Primary room floor.
We are getting a cowboy hat and bonnet to place on the child's head as we discuss a way from the above list that they could be a modern day pioneer.

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Suggestion # 2.
I noticed in this month's (July 2000) Friend it said that a handcart (pg 4) could hold 120 pounds of baggage, 100 pounds of flour, cooking utensils, and additional food. A family might have three handcarts. Since I don't own anything like a handcart, I considered bringing my home scale and weighing a few heavy
items (Dutch oven, food storage wheat, beans, etc.) and then setting them on a table or in a child's wagon.

Page 21 of the Friend has a picture of a child standing by a wagon and shows how big the wheel was relatively. I could ask a child how hard it would be to push in the wagon or lift on the table just the things we weighed out. This would segue into teaching "Put Your Shoulder to the wheel" because that meant you had to use muscle and push hard. Then I may use the story previously mentioned of the girl who moved and was a modern-day pioneer, and teach the song related to that.