We got a little taste of history today. What a great event for the homeschoolers to attend. There were over 80 children who attended with a waiting list of more. Some kids came from Yarnell, Tucson, Wickenburg and Phoenix.
Our first part of our tour started at 10am with the military and we became their volunteers to train and fight the Indians. This guy was a crack up. He was so "real" like that he was almost scary. Actually I looked over at the front row of smaller kids and 3 of them we about in tears. I had to tell them that he was pretending. : ) They learned what they had to eat (flat bread) and to reserve their water as their one canteen had to last 20 miles of marching to the next water hole. And that an Indian could shoot 10 arrows by the time a military guy could get his gun ready to shoot.
Next stop was to the old school house that had been moved from its original location to where it sits now in Prescott. The children learned to line up in 2 lines (girls and boys) and to greet the teacher the proper way.
All the actors for the tour did a great job at creating a real setting of many years ago. The children actually had a real 30 minute school lesson of spelling and learning about Arizona, Territories and Prescott then a little math.
Then we visited the Governor's Mansion and finally the transportation building. This coach was originally delivered to them with several bullet holes and blood from a hold up. The story goes that it has $27,000 cash on it when it was held up and the driver and one passenger were killed. It is now restored in its original condition of how it first was.
After lunch the kids had 11 activities to do including panning for gold, making clothes pin dolls and cloth dolls, petroglyphs and grinding corn and more.
At the end of the day the head of the Museum told me that we were one of her larger groups and the most well behaved children and great readers.
During our day I did notice a deaf man and woman signing across the way and later I introduced myself (signing) and we chatted for a bit and they were from Phoenix and he and his wife are both deaf and they have 2 hearing children that they homeschool. They were so happy to meet someone who could communicate with them. And the best part ... was that on the way home Kayla said that the coolest part of the day was watching me talk to that dad with my hands. : )
I will continue teaching sign with the girls more this summer as they seem to love it.
No comments:
Post a Comment