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Health & Fitness

Colonial Day at Peck Place School

Colonial Day at Peck Place

Students in the fifth grade at Peck Place, along with their teachers and many volunteers, had the chance to experience a little bit of Colonial life on January 20th.  The teachers planned eight 'stations' for them to visit throughout the day-long event, engaging students in activities which will help bring some aspects of colonial culture to life. 

The students made grapevine wreaths decorated with flowers and played a colonial game they had made in which they caught a ball on a string in a cup.  They seemed to enjoy finger knitting -- and were actually quite good at it, too.  This was a relatively quick method for tying fishing nets.  In colonial cooking, they made and had a chance to taste corn bread.  They even hand-churned the butter to go on it in heavy crocks, just as Mrs. Ginny Reinhart, from the Orange Historical Society, taught them to do.  This station was delicious and a favorite!  The children made pomander balls with cloves and oranges and learned punch-tin patterning and stenciling.

The fifth graders and their teachers also had guests at this event, as 26 5th grade students from Hamden, CT, participating in Colonial Day with them.  The collaboration is the main focus of a two-year ACES grant, in which Hamden teacher Jeff Bloomfield and our teacher Erica Campbell agree to 20 hours of webchats and two exchange activities between their classes.  Hamden visited Peck Place on the 20th for Colonial Day.  Mrs. Campbell’s class will goto Hamden in June for their Civil War enactment.

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As it is with all of us, the units of study which come alive with hands-on activities, with socializing with our friends, with our opportunity to experiment with new textures, smells, and processes, those units are especially memorable and have lasting impact.

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