A Field Trip

I hope you are ready to be inundated with pictures.  Today was a field trip day and we actually had blue sky so I got a little camera happy!  Can you blame me?  Check out those blue skies! We took a little trip and learned a little history about our city. This is the school house that was built in 1885

I LOVE the bell tower.

One interesting tid bit . . . the townspeople would have to save and save in order to hire a teacher for their school, so they might only have a teacher for a couple months at a time and then they would have to save up all over again before they could hire another teacher.

Before they built this school the children were either home schooled or they would have to take a boat into the closest larger city to attend school.

I'm pretty sure I want our homeschool classroom to one day look like this!

Check out these cute kiddos . . .

They had a bunch of school books out and this is one of the old note books.

The teacher would have to come early and fire up the stove to warm up the school room.

Another item I need for our school room.

This was the schools first teacher and her bell that she used before they had the bell tower.

Check out the detail on this door knob! Why don't they make things like they used to?

This is an old cabin . . . a very small cabin.  If I remember right the family that lived in this house had ten children.  Not while living in this cabin, but eventually.  Could you imagine 12 people living in this cabin?

This highchair is amazing!  I want one!

That is a feed sack dress. I love this dress other than that the print is upside down, but thats just the OCD in me coming out!

This was our lovely tour guide.  She was wonderful and very patient, especially with our group of active younger boys.

The kinderboys have been learning about communities and how different people contribute and help each other. You can see more of what they do over at http://theeverydayhomeschool.blogspot.com Our tour guide did a wonderful job incorporating that into our tour. This is picture of them logging.  They were attracted to this area because of all of the beautiful trees.

Another tid bit of info . . . They would travel by river to go into the main city, however when some nearby locks were built it severely lowered the level of the river.  That's when they made this new boat.   It's a flat bottom boat in order to travel the now lower level river.

Here's a model of that same boat.

 And this is a picture of the early town.  Originally all of the buildings were made of wood but unfortunately they had two separate fires.  The first destroyed the left hand side and then the second destroyed the right hand side.  When they rebuilt, the founder of the town and owner of I believe the mercantile built his out of brick.  Smart man!

 This is one of the founders top hats.  It looks like a felt hat but it's actually made out of beaver fur!  CRAZY!

 Our guide showed us this beautiful quilt and talked of how women would donate scraps and would all come together and hand stitch these beautiful quilts.

 The same goes for this dress.  You can't see very well but there is this lovely crocheted lace trim on the dress and it was made by several women coming together and each doing a section.

 Our guide made sure to point out that women weren't the only ones that did needle work.  She showed us this little sampler that a little boy had stitched long ago.

 This is the kitchen in the founders home.  I LOVE all the old kitchen tools.  Again, I want!

 So quaint!

  Following our field trip we took a little time to enjoy the gorgeous weather.  Not too much though!  I had to get to Zumba.  Priorities, right?!  At least thats what I keep telling myself! :)