Maren's 4th Grade CA History Project!

We all have fond memories of Deacon's Presidio project from 2 years ago. This year, it's Maren's turn! Today is the due date, so we have pictures!

She chose to make a Pueblo, or small town. California cities such as San Jose and Los Angeles began as Pueblos.

She couldn't find a lot of visual references for California pueblos; pueblos in New Mexico are still standing and have a lot more photo documentation. So she took the information she could find and made her own representation of a pueblo, inspired by the church building on Olvera Street, which was part of the original Pueblo de Los Angeles.

1869


Today


The Making of Maren's Pueblo: this is what it looked like on Monday night!


Prepping the buildings for their placement on the board.


Last night! Houses are glued down.


Maren is a TOTAL PRO with hot glue.




This morning: the completed pueblo from all angles!






Maren and her pueblo. YES, the Episode VII cast table read pic is my desktop wallpaper.


Please excuse the excessive amount of photos documenting the details!


Eventually you have to just throw these projects in the trash, so it's nice to have all the pics!


Special thanks to Deacon, who provided lighting grip services for these pics.
















Maren's church building features a cutaway roof, so you can peek in and see the happy parishoners!




Maren worked like a pro on this project and we're very, very proud of her.


We're also excited to see the surface of our kitchen table again after Deacon's science project and now the completion of the pueblo.


And here's the text of her written report!

Pueblos

By Maren Alff

Pueblos were Spanish dwellings that supplied the presidios and missions with food and supplies. In Spanish, the word pueblo means “village.” The first pueblo to be established was El pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, or just San José. San José was founded by Felipe de Neve, who was also governor of California at that time. Pueblos were usually built near missions and presidios. San José was built near mission Santa Clara. Some cities in California that we have today actually once were pueblos. Los Angeles and San José are some of the cities that started out as pueblos.

Spanish and Indian people lived and worked at the pueblos. Pueblos were farming communities. Their work was usually farming, raising animals, and getting meat from the animals. The most important job was farming the grain. Grain was a very important food at that time. Not only was grain important to pueblos, but it was also very important to the missions and presidios that it supplied. There were many fields of crops, but the biggest field that they had was the grain field.

Pueblos had shops, houses, a church, and all the things that you would find in a Spanish village. Settlers who lived in the pueblos were called pobladors. Pobladors were able to plant gardens and fields around their houses. All of the pueblos had an alcalde, or mayor. The alcalde ran the pueblo and kept track of things that were happening in the pueblo.

For my pueblo, I made the ground out of fake grass powder and fake dirt powder. I glued the grass to the board by using a type of spray paint bottle of glue. Next, I hot-glued a well to the ground and filled it with blue clay. To make it shiny, I got some clay gloss and painted the gloss over the blue clay. I filled some bowls with blue clay and did the same thing. After that, I made a fence by breaking toothpicks in half and pushing them into the ground. Then I hot-glued some animals behind the fence.

My parents helped me make the church. They hot-glued the walls and put the roof on, but I also did a lot of the work. I spray painted the walls of the church and designed the church. My dad did the bell, helped me cut out the windows, helped me make the pews in the church, and helped me make the cross on the front of the church. I made the crosses on the sides of the pews. My mom helped me make the bars in the windows black by coloring toothpicks with a black Sharpie and made the outline for my stained glass window.

For the houses and shops, my dad and I went out and spray painted the walls. Once again, my dad helped me cut out the windows and doors and my parents both helped me hot-glue the walls together. When it was time to put them down, my mom hot-glued the bottoms and I placed them in their places. When we were almost finished, we put down all of the bushes, trees, crops, etc. My dad hot-glued the smoke to the fire.

I got my supplies and books from:

Michaels
The Train Shack
Disney (The board that we used was a poster for a movie that my dad got at work)
The Burbank Library (The books were California Pageant, California: the Story of our Southwest Corners, California, and California History)