Heritage Village ~ Homeschool Field Trip~ part 1: The School House

We spent last Friday at a Heritage Village on a homeschool field trip. It was awesome!

The kids and I have been at similar historical villages in the past and we always enjoy ourselves. Seeing how people lived a long time ago always grabs our attention.

The first part of this field trip was spent in the school house (if you look at the third picture, you can see that my kids weren't too impressed to be in a school at first!). This particular one was built in 1907. Our guide did an excellent job explaining how the school house would have been built, why it was built with many windows, with 2 entrance doors and many more architectural details. He also shared a typical day in the one-room school house, the different ages of the students there, and what the lessons might have been liked.

We all changed our names to popular names of 1900s. Adrienne became Elise, Andre was Winston, Celeste was given Kitty, and I become Winnie!

We were handed out school slates along with a piece of chalk and a piece of fabric. We all practiced writing with our left hand, to feel how left-handed people would have had to cope, since everyone had to write with their right hand in school a hundred years ago.

The guide went on to ask questions and taught the children how to answer properly, standing by the side of their desks.

There were many more fun exercices, even an explanation of the punishments the children might have to endure if they broke the rules!

I will be sharing more of our field trip shortly. The next part will be recess!