Colonial Days at Sam Houston School House

Yesterday I took the two younger kids with me on a home school field trip. (Bradley didn't go as he was not feeling well.) I was worried because it was raining when I woke up....but the rain stopped and off we went! I had never been to this location before and neither had the kids so it was an adventure just finding the place on the back roads of Blount County, Tennessee. What a great day it turned out to be! It was a wonderful turn out with home school mamas and their children, who ranged in age from K-12th grades. It was really neat to see everyone together and having fun. Kendrick and Breanna got to see the original school house that Sam Houston taught at. Very interesting. I told them they shouldn't complain. Students in the 1800's got a chalkboard, some slates, and wooden benches. I bet those got uncomfortable as the day wore on for those children. There was a small museum that told all about the life of Sam Houston. (He was the only man to be governor of two states... both Tennessee and Texas. ) The really fun part of the day was the stations that the kids got to participate in. There was candle dipping (they got to keep their candles), corn grinding, butter churning, and sauerkraut making. I was the one that was put in charge of the sauerkraut making. The high schoolers were excellent choppers of the cabbage. Middle schoolers still fine....but the elementary age kids made me very nervous. One of the 7 year old boys said, " I can do this! Just give me the knife!" I told him, "there will be no chopping off of any fingers at my station. I will HELP YOU." He was not thrilled, but I was a tad anxious to let him have the knife. It seemed to me that he wanted it a wee bit too much! We salted the cabbage and stored it in mason jars. The kids asked questions about how long it took for it to ferment? We discussed that during this time period preparing meals was a lot of hard work--and there were no such places like Wal-mart or grocery stores per say. One little boy looked at me, " no Wal-mart?" "Yes, no Wal-mart." "Wow."

Each family had brought food for lunch and we had a HUGE Thanksgiving meal. All I can say is Yum! We even got to use the butter we had made for our rolls.

Kendrick participated in some of the colonial style dances that a lady at the museum showed the middle and high schoolers how to do, and both Breanna and Kendrick played Capture the Flag, after lunch, down in the old schoolhouse yard.

As we were packing up for the day, around 3 o'clock, it started to pour. I was thankful that we had such a good day and the Lord held off on the rain for us until just the right time:)