THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411240255
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
For a group of fourth-graders from Driver Elementary School, Jamestown was just a name they had studied until they recently visited the site of the first English settlement in the New World. And they got a dose of another adventure as well - a scavenger hunt.
``Jamestown is a good place to go to learn history,'' said Shelonda Askew, one of the students.
The scavenger hunt was a learning tool dreamed up by Pat Swindell, one of the group's teachers.
After the standard guided tour the children backtracked to the areas where the guide had led them earlier, each group armed with a sheet of items to look for.
They had to remember what they saw, find it again and check it off.
Another value of the scavenger hunt is obvious. There are so many visitors that the guides must take the groups through rather quickly.
The hunt enabled the students to visit the same areas twice, be reminded of some of the things they had learned, and come up with some more nuggets of knowledge.
They had already learned a lot about Jamestown, thanks to preparatory lessons at school that included a visit from a docent.
All that plus some fairly heavy study and the boys and girls were ready.
Their guide was impressed.
``It's obvious that this group studied beforehand,'' said Sarah Mattison. ``They're ready with the answers.''
Most of the children had learned something about the buildings, the ships, the fortress, all part of their pre-trip studies.
But seeing for themselves is impressive, and that's an advantage schoolchildren in this area have over their peers elsewhere.
``We learned about the Indians making things like beds, dishes, houses, churches,'' said Shelonda Askew. ``It was really fun.''
A great deal of fun was on shipboard.
The Driver youngsters were taken on the largest of the replicas of the three ships that brought the settlers to Jamestown, the Susan Constant.
``We got to go on all the decks but the bottom,'' Dereck Thorpe wrote in a composition about the trip.
``We could not go to the bottom because the bottom is for the animals.''
That youngster also offered his version of what he felt was the highlight of the trip.
``The very best part was lunch,'' Dereck wrote. ``Oh lunch, oh lunch, oh lunch - mmmmm.''
And, oh souvenirs. The group paid a a visit to the shops, enabling the children to spend the money their parents gave them.
Food and take-home goodies aside, most of the children were impressed with the fort, the grounds, the ships, and the guides in the dress of the times, the old utensils and weapons and buildings.
``I felt like I was really living back then because everything looked so real,'' Rachel Short wrote in her composition.
``I never saw anything like that in my whole nine years.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by FRANK ROBERTS
Some Driver Elementary School fourth-graders learn about the art of
Indian cooking from their guide, Hank Mosley, during a recent trip
to the Jamestown settlement.
by CNB