9 Adorable Stick Horse Rodeo ideas for economics lessons in 1st grade

It’s the day that all first grade teachers in our town, {present & past} know all too well: Stick Horse Rodeo day!  These stick horse rodeo ideas are a tradition in our town that has been going on with first graders for umpteenbazillion years….okay, maybe not that many, but at LEAST 20 years because my brother participated in the stick horse rodeo 20 years ago as a first grader. {Although I’m older, I didn’t participate because we didn’t live there when I was a first grader.}  

It’s a really big community project for our school district and it leaves us all feeling exhausted at the end of the day. And today it also left me looking like a lobster {guess who didn’t put on sunscreen??? #fail}.

Here’s a peek at 9 of our stick horse rodeo ideas in case you aren’t from our neck of the woods!

Here’s what our “Full” stick horse rodeo unit included…

• First grade teachers teach economics to our firsties {like scarcity, cowboy wants & needs, production lines, assemblies, producers, consumers, resources, choice, goods and services…}
• First graders produce a stick horse {a good} using an assembly line {and several adult volunteers} with their capital resources and labor resources.
• First graders go to a district-wide stick horse rodeo and participate in rodeo events.

But now, thanks to common core, we’ve had to make some adjustments.  Because our FFA High Schoolers are involved with helping put on the stick horse rodeo, we couldn’t reschedule the rodeo to fit with our economics unit (now in December).

So, we started tying it in to our Common Core Cinderella Unit as best we can.

Cowboy Cinderella Read Alouds

This week, we have been learning about North America and reading some Cinderella versions from our very own continent!  We stumbled upon this cowboy version of Cinderella and it.is.THE.perfect marriage for stick horse week and Cinderella!

The kids absolutely adore this version and it’s a great way to talk about the Wild West culture of North America and the Texan setting of this book!

We also read Cindy Ellen which is another cowgirl version of Cinderella and perfect for North America and Rodeo week!

Here’s a look at our eventful day!

a “real” rodeo show

The Rodeo of the Ozarks Rounders performed for the kids in the stadium to start off the morning!

Then, we spent the rest of the day rotating through different “rodeo” themed stations.  Here are a few of our favorite stick horse rodeo ideas and stations….

Pole Bending

Milking “Cows”

Barrel Racing

Line Dancing & Music

Cooling off and listening to the “Singin’ Cowboy” sing some songs from his trail…

Buckin’ Barrels

This stick horse rodeo station is always a kid-favorite!

more stick horse rodeo ideas

We also do face painting, a McDonald’s sponsored drink break and class picture, and roping {we rope a metal bull head on a bale of hay}.  This year, we didn’t get to do roping because they had scheduled it too late for us and we had to get our kids back to school to catch the buses! Boo!!

During our lunch break, the kids always enjoy checking out the cows in the barn next door.  They were out in full force today and louder than I’ve ever heard them!

MOOOOOOO!!!

Even though our kids don’t make stick horses, we still wanted them to have a special souvenir to keep since it is such a great tradition for our kids.  So, the past 2 years we have made these *adorable* rodeo t-shirts for the kids to wear and take home.

This year we were also more efficient in making the t-shirts and glued the letters to a piece of scrap wood so our volunteers could stamp the the whole word at the same time instead of a letter at a time! The kids did the handprint in brown craft paint and added the eye, mane, and tail with a black sharpie! They just look perfect!

We also ordered bandanas for them to keep, but we didn’t make them wear them today since it was going to be HOT outside!

cowboy wants and needs activities

If we have time, I like to do a few things from my Cowboy Mini-Pack like reading Gail Gibbons’ Cowboys and Cowgirls and labeling the resources a cowboy and his horse need. And sorting the wants and needs of a cowboy. This year, my kids will be doing it with a sub tomorrow!

cowboy and cowgirl craft and writing

I also plan on having them make a cowboy or cowgirl to go with their Stick Horse Rodeo narrative writing next week!  They always turn out so cute. This sample is from a few years ago when we did the “full on” unit and they wrote about what it would be like to be a cowboy or cowgirl.

This cowboy craft is also included in my Cinderella Common Core Unit since it ties in with Bubba the Cowboy Prince and Cindy Ellen.

All of these stick horse rodeo ideas plus vocabulary cards, matching games, and directions and supplies for making stick horses are included in my cowboy mini-pack.

While there are moments when I miss producing stick horses with the kids…{here’s a pic from a few years back. LOL!}

 …I’m glad that they still get a souvenir and get to experience the rodeo! It is such a memorable day for the kids, no matter how exhausting for us all!