Last Friday the 3rd graders at George Washington Academy appropriatley enough, went back to Colonial America for a short visit. The girls wore skirts and covered their hair, while the boys wore knickers and knee socks. They split into groups and took turns playing games- marbles, jacks, and others- and learning useful skills like candle making and how to make a colonial game with string and a button!
The kids loved it- especially when Mr. McCleery told them the gross history behind the childhood game "ring-around-the-rosy". (If you don't know it, look it up or ask me and I will tell you.) The climax came when the kids got to eat colonial foods- berries, cheese, jam and whole grain bread with whole milk The only condition was they had to stand and eat in silence for 10 minutes!!
They did pretty well, only cracking up when we adults made pretend conversation about our colonial families. Ian caught me when I said my son had milked the cow that morn- the girls did that chore in colonial times. I had already spoken of fictional daughters, so I had no excuse.
It was lots of fun and we are thankful we have teachers like Mrs. Raybould and Mr. McCleery to come up with these great ideas- I hear next year they are going to be Berzerkers and do some pillaging!!
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