California History Day 2018

Friday was a big day for the fourth grade students at Laurelwood.  It was California History Day.  We traveled back to 1849 to experience life like the gold miners seeking their fortunes. 

The kids dressed the part and brought their lunches in bandanas and baskets.  There were even suggestions to bring historically accurate food for lunch like beef jerky but we didn't take it that far.  

Here's Leo as he arrived at school.  He's wearing my cowboy boots.  

 I arrived at school about 30 minutes before the kids to help with set up.  There was a lot to set up.  The kids came out and lined up to stake their claims.  It was a bit of organized chaos.

Each mining group of four to five kids staked their claim and parents came around to put actual stakes in the ground to mark it off.

Leo and his friend Elouan went for some authentic miner looks that included mustaches.  The mustaches didn't last long.  

 Then they set up camp.  The school has several tents for kids to use and some tents were brought from home.  Here's Tom setting up a particularly complicated tent for a group of girls.

 Here's Leo in front of their camp.

 Once their claims were staked, the kids got to collect "gold" from the ground in their claim.  There was also a chance to claim gold from "no man's land", which involved negotiating with neighboring mining groups.  Once the gold was collected, it was weighed and tallied.

 The gold was exchanged for tickets that bought them pancakes for breakfast.  They returned to Boom Town to eat breakfast in their camps.

 Here we are before the rotations started.  The 20 or so kids moved through several stations spread out across the field.

 Here's Leo and some fellow miners panning for gold.  Tom was there to supervise, instruct and refill the troughs with gold between each group.

 We made Leo stop panning to take a family shot.

I spent the majority of my time at the neighboring station.  I taught the kids how to play blackjack and we played several hands during our rotation.  

 After the kids visited the panning for gold and blackjack station, they moved on to square dancing.

Other stations included a Native American station where the kids made corn husk dolls and played a game called Hoops and Spears.

 They also made tortillas.

 Leo's tortilla looked great but he had no interest in eating it.

 They also played Rancho Games like sack racing and tug-o-war.

Another game involved these "horses" and herding pigs (pink beach balls) into pens.

 This was an all day event.  The kids visited three stations before lunch and then two more after lunch.  Tom and I stayed all day from set up to clean up.  It was exhausting but so much fun.  It was great to see the kids engage in the activities and make connections back to what they had learned in the classroom.

And Tom was a superstar.  He never complained and spent the whole day helping kids pan for gold and pitching in wherever he was needed.  We both need the next two years to fully recover from the day to be ready to do it again when Serafina is a fourth grader.