Our piece of history...

Last Friday we were able to participate in a field trip with several other homeschoolers. We were able to travel back in time to 1910, to a one room school house for a full day of school. This was complete with a packed lunch only like they would have been able to pack back then and dress as they would have. So here they are beginning their day, of course the girls are on one side and boys on the other.......unless you act up to much and have to sit on the opposite side! Thankfully we didn't have anyone have to do that ;)

They were given a list of spelling words to write on their slates....

then one group was called to the front for recitation while the other group stayed at their seat and practiced writing each spelling word, in turn, 10 times on the back of their slates.

Here was the girls cabinets holding their lunches.

The cabinet on the left here contained the boys lunches and the table on the right was the hand washing station, complete with lye soap!

The students took turns washing hands, girls first of course, after which time their hands were inspected by the schoolmarm.

There were a variety of options for what we could pack for lunch. Some lunches include "leftover fried chicken from last nights dinner", bread and butter, bread with meat,etc.... Many apples and surprisingly LOTS of hard boiled eggs were had. No oranges or bananas were allowed as tropical fruit would not have been common in Oklahoma during that time period. 

 And of course lunches were packed either in a pail or basket, with food wrapped in paper or cloth and a tin cup to drink out of.

 After lunch, which had to be eaten inside due to the rain we'd had that morning, they were given a small amount of time to play outside on this wonderful thing called a flying jenny! The kids had a blast.....I so wanted to join in ;)

 Following lunch they had a short moral story while they rested their heads on their desks. After that was the history lesson  current events discussion where we talked about recent issues here in Oklahoma including our recent statehood which  occurred in 1907. Many of the other facts we discussed I found very interesting and news to me! Last but not least, the spelling bee. Miss Snap made it up till the last cut, she and one other student missed the same word leaving the last student to win....so close!

 And of course this trip wouldn't be complete w/o a shot of them in front of the schoolhouse :) I'll have to take a close up of their mini quilts they (with some help to get them done in time) made to cover their lunch pails ;)