Field Trip with Madison

Roll One Room Schoolhouse 

 

This was the first field trip that required true participation.  We all had to dress up, eat our lunch from a can and to actually eat food prepared as if it were 1910.  We went to the Cheyenne park where the one room schoolhouse was moved to from its original location in Roll, Oklahoma.  The one room school is very authentic.  The day we went it was foggy, rain drizzle, and cold.  We had no heat and all of needed blankets to stay warm.   The stove in the center is a coal burning stove but can't be used until after November 1.  This field trip was also interactive.  The students were treated as if they were students at the school in 1910.  They had to use quill pens and ink to write and chalk and chalkboards for arithmetic problems dictated from the teacher. In the picture below, Madi was showing me that she had the right answer!

  We learned some about the history of teachers and one room school houses.  I have so many pictures it is so hard to choose just a few.  The one thing that really made an impression on me was the reading of the daily bible verse.  It is amazing how much things have changed in that area.  The verse is recited by a student and discussed with the whole class.  I had a wonderful time and I am really glad to have had the opportunity. 

Here in the last picture the kids are washing up for lunch in the back of the room while the rest of the class is going over spelling words for the day.   Water is brought in daily by buckets from the well pump. 

P-Bar Farms Field Trip

Oh what fun we have on field trips! I went with Parker's class to P-Bar Farms east of Weatherford on Wed. We went out to a pumpkin patch and picked our very own pumpkin. They were all small, the perfect size for the kids. I had a lot of fun, although it was a rather strange day. On many of the field trips I have been on, the teachers have a planned itinerary. It is followed to the letter. Which for the most part is a good thing. But not this one. The day was very low key , other than the 25 screaming kids. Not once did I see the teachers scrambling to do a head count.

They had a wonderful time despite the dreary weather that moved in Tuesday night. Just a few rain sprinkles the whole day. P-Bar Farms was a really neat field trip. They actually had lots of interesting things for the kids planned. They have really spent time in making the farm appropriate for young school age children. They have a train and an inflatable slide, which the kids see as the best thing since sliced bread. (I just couldn't pass up this cliche. My nanny uses it and I always laugh when she does.) They also gave a presentation on wind power and solar power. This was all a little more than the kids could grasp but very interesting for the adults. The Weatherford area has approximately 90 wind turbines and to my surprise none of that electricity is used in Oklahoma. They said that all of that energy produced is used in Florida. This is really strange to me. It seems like they would use more energy/electricity getting the power generated to Florida than they produce. But, I don't guess what I think is too important. Anyway, we all had a good time.