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LORRI HELFANDA visit to a rusty boxcar at a lumber yard brings The Boxcar Children alive to a group of students.
ST. PETERSBURG - Nine-year-old Tyson Rice curled up on a mound of pine needles inside a rusty, brick-red boxcar and pretended to sleep.
A few feet away, 9-year-olds Jabe Molinaro and Sam Gunnin huddled near 7-year-old Tyler Lewin on the metal-slab floor, where they munched wheat bread, American cheese and some blueberries.
They were living the adventures of the kids in Gertrude Chandler Warner's The Boxcar Children.
All year, Donna Benitez's first-graders and Kathy Larson's third-graders at Plumb Elementary School in Clearwater have buddied up for a variety of school activities. For the past three weeks, the kids met every day to read The Boxcar Children and draw pictures about the story.
On Wednesday, they came to Cox Lumber in St. Petersburg to check out a real railroad car, decorated by parent volunteers to look like the one in the book.
Inside, there was a pine needle broom, a stuffed dog and a shelf lined with cups, flowers, a pitcher and a trophy. And out front, there was a blue tablecloth, along with a construction paper tree stump and a plastic cutout of a kettle hanging from a garment rack, with a ball of fire-orange tissue resting below it.
The kids spent the morning tracking down objects they remembered from the book and pretending that they were the Boxcar Children - Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny Alden, orphans who find shelter in an abandoned railroad car.
"It's awesome. For the whole story to come alive. It's reading in motion," said Tyson's mother, Danene, who came early to set the scene.
The idea for the field trip began a decade ago, when Benitez worked with Mary Brandes at Northside Christian School. Benitez told Brandes, who was the principal at the time, that she was looking for an activity to bring the story alive for her students. Brandes, whose family runs Cox Lumber, thought maybe they could use one of the empty boxcars for a class field trip because lumber is delivered directly to the company via the railroad.
Brandes, now Cox Lumber executive vice president, got family support, and Benitez continued the project for a few years. She came to Plumb Elementary seven years ago and renewed the project a couple of years back.
In front of the car, the kids furiously jotted down items and skipped on stones resting on a sky-blue paper brook.
"Did we get everything?" Emily Durham-Moore, 7, asked her buddy, Alyssa Strickland, 9.
"Oh, the vegetables!" Emily said, halting near a kettle with plastic veggies popping out of it.
"I just love mysteries. It's pretty amazing how they capture the people," said Tyson, as he lined up for a tour of Cox Lumber, the final field trip activity.
He's a huge fan of the series, which has more than 115 books, including the original series and special sections. Warner, who wrote the first 19, died in 1979.
Nicole Wolfson, a parent of a third-grader and a preschool teacher, said she sees the value of the project as an educator.
"Any time you connect a story and a real event it's more meaningful," she said.
The activities also help kids understand the text, she added, because young readers are more concerned with pronunciation than comprehension.
The buddy concept has been a bonus for all of the kids, Benitez said.
"It's been good for the older children to help the younger ones. It's great for the younger kids to have an older person as a role model," she said.
As they chomped on their boxcar snack, a few of the children said they understand what The Boxcar Children is all about.
"I think the lesson is being grateful for what we have," Jabe said.
"We're glad that we have our parents," Tyler added.
This is the final boxcar field trip for Benitez, 57, who is retiring after 31 years in education and a total of 14 years in the district.
"We're lucky to be the last ones to do this," Tyson said.
- Lorri Helfand can be reached at 445-4155 or at lorri@sptimes.com