Olde School

Harri's class at school hs been doing a unit of inquiry exploring the question 'what is changing?'.  They have been doing different things throughout the year such as going to the Punchbowl Reserve at different seasons to see the changes between autumn and spring.  

Before the school holidays one of his teachers asked me if I would like to come as 'parent help' on an excursion to Hagley Farm School.  I was really excited to do it, as I have never been able to do parent help in Harri's class, and have only done it a couple of times when Jay was in Kinder and Prep. I arranged with Mum to help by babysitting Kobe and yesterday we headed off to Hagley.

I wasn't sure how Harri would be with having me there all day, but he was so excited and couldn't wait to sit on the bus with me. 

He asked me on the way to school if I was going to be tired because it was 'six hours'.  I told him I thought I'd be okay, and then he said 'but you are always tired Mum!'. Jay then said 'that's because she goes to the gym too much Harri!'.  I told them it was because I'm always looking after them and all Mums are tired :)

Hagley is an awesome little country school with modern facilities, as well as old original classrooms, vegetable gardens, and a working farm.

The kids were so excited to play in a different playground, before they headed off to be involved in the cottage industries.

They were split into four groups and rotated around the different industries.  I got to stay with Harri's group, and the first thing they did was combing out wool and spinning wool on a spinning wheel.

The next thing they did was churn their own butter.  They loved it as they got to try some of it on crackers.

 They then did some bread making which involved grinding the wheat...

and kneading their own dough before shaping it into rolls.  They got to have their rolls for lunch with the fresh butter that they made on it.

 The last thing they did was candle making which they all loved.

After lunch we were able to go for a little walk around the farm. It's not usually a part of the cottage industry excursion but is another excursion all together, so we knew how lucky we were.

 The kids got to take some food scraps down to the pigs and the new piglets...

 and also got to see the calves.

After seeing some of the animals the teacher who was showing us around, talked to the kids about school many years ago.  She talked about how different things were to now, and how the teachers acted a lot differently to how they do now.  She told them that they were going to go into the old classroom and were going to be doing some drama about what school was like over 100 years ago. Some of the kids were actually a little scared about it as she was demonstrating how the teacher was often very strict and 'grumpy'.  A couple of them even burst into tears! She kept reminding them that it was just going to be pretending and how it was drama and no one was going to get hurt.  They then got into some costumes before heading into the old classroom.  The kids loved it and were all giggling as they marched in.

The old classroom had some amazing old newspapers and books in it as well as lots of things that they used years ago such as old desks, ink wells and blotting paper.




She put on her teacher's outfit and took on the role of 'Mrs Grumpy' which was hilarious.  She kept yelling at the kids to 'sit up straight, feet on the floor!!', and would tell them off for everything and would make them say 'Yes Mrs Grumpy!!' after everything she said.

While she was in role she showed them different punishments that they kids had such as putting their nose on a spot on the blackboard, writing out lines on the blackboard such as "I will not use 'um'", using the cain (she took a child out the back and pretended to give him the cain by hitting it onto a gumboot) and sitting them on the dunces chair.

Most of the kids loved it but a couple of them you could see were really nervous, so she didn't go as long as she normally would with older kids.  She said that she notices a huge difference between the grades and how long they can handle her being in role for as even though they knew it was drama and a bit of fun, it was hard for some of them to believe that she was just pretending as she was so believable and very grumpy!

Harri loved it and thought it was funny that he was getting into trouble for writing with his left hand and smudging his work.

The role play went on for probably twenty minutes or so and was very funny, especially when she called the other parent helper and teachers and myself the 'four dumb girls down the back' :)
This is just a short video of the kids in the classroom.

It was a fantastic excursion and the kids had the best day. Harri absolutely loved having him with me all day and kept putting his arms around me all day saying 'I love you Mum' and just hanging off me all day. It was so nice to be able to spend the whole day just with him. 

It was also nice to be back in the school setting for a day.  It didn't really make me miss teaching, but it was nice to be around the kids all day and especially nice to get home to Kobe and Noah who were happy with Grandma, a clean house and tea cooked! I said I think I could get used to going to work all day if Grandma was home running the house!  ;)