THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 1, 1996 TAG: 9604300171
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CARROLLTON LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Signs in the hallway at Carrollton Elementary School last week pointed the way toward Duke of Gloucester Street.
But students didn't have to go all the way to Colonial Williamsburg to get there.
They simply had to walk down the fourth grade hall, where shops representing crafts from Colonial times were set up in one classroom after another.
In a milliner's shop, every student in the room was busy making hats like those that may have been worn centuries ago. Another group of students was busy working on a quilt. Still others were making toys and playing games like those their ancestors may have played.
The re-creation of life in Colonial Virginia was the culmination of the fourth grade's Virginia history studies. Wendy Edwards, one of six fourth grade teachers at the school this year, designed the program that brought life and hands-on experiences from history into modern times.
``I was an American history major in college,'' Edwards said. ``I know that a lot of children today really don't appreciate history. I thought that this experience might help them to understand better some of the things that went on during Colonial times.''
Edwards, a first-year teacher, 1992 graduate of Windsor High School and a '95 graduate of Longwood College, took on the course in living history as a personal project, designing ``Colonial Day: A visit to Virginia's past'' as a guidebook and teaching manual to be used in the curriculum.
The students - about 150 fourth-graders in all - learned all about how Colonial Virginians dressed, what they ate, how they studied, what kinds of work they did and how they played.
``You can take these sachets home and put them in your drawers so your clothes will smell good,'' Nancy Zawdny, a Christopher Newport University student who is doing her student teaching at Carrollton, told her class, as she guided the youngsters through making sachets in the apothecary shop. ``People during Colonial times couldn't wash their clothes as easily as we can, so they used sachets to keep their things smelling nice.''
Each of the six classrooms on fourth grade hall was set up to resemble one of the shops that may have been located in Williamsburg during the 1700s, and the activity going on in the classroom simulated the activity of the shop, said Beth Folden, one of the teachers who participated in the project.
``At the end of the day, the students will have six different things - crafts from Colonial times - to take home with them,'' Folden said.
A Colonial lunch was provided by parent volunteers after Edwards sent home with the students recipes taken from a Colonial cookbook. In the school cafeteria, the students drank grape juice or apple juice and feasted on things like ham biscuits, chicken pudding, pumpkin pudding and johnny cakes.
``This wouldn't have been possible without help from the parents,'' Edwards said. ``We had parent volunteers working with all of the crafts; they helped the students to dress for the day in Colonial costumes, and they really came through with lunch.
``The whole experience gave the children an opportunity to live and appreciate history for a day. It was fun for all of them. I think they really enjoyed it, and they learned a lot.''
Colonial Day at Carrollton this year was so successful, Edwards said, that it already has been included in the curriculum for next year's fourth grade classes. by CNB