St. Augustine Field Trip

Today was an exciting day for our classes!  This week is Red Ribbon Week, and we're expressing our choices to be drug and bully-free by participating in special dress days.  Most of the days are Dr. Seuss-themed to match our Oh the Places You'll Go school theme for 2013-2014.   Today was Twin Day (dress like a friend) in honor of Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take many pictures of friends dressed as twins because we went on a field trip to St. Augustine to kick off our study of Florida history in social studies.

Our first stop was a Timucua Native American village, where a holata (sp? chief) was immediately chosen, tattooed, painted with war paint, and decked out in deer skin:

We learned about some Timucua weapons and tools made from natural resources and how this people group traveled by canoe to trade with other Native American tribes around Florida.  We made necklaces from abalone shells, which are native to California, to teach us that Native Americans across the U.S. traded natural resources from coast to coast.

Then we had a chance to try out some Timucua work such as scraping out a canoe,

tending a garden,

drilling holes,

and grinding corn.

              We even had some time to relax and play Timucua games similar to some we still play today.

Before we traveled in time hundreds of years, everyone applied war paint and tattoos.

Our next stop was Fort Menendez, a Spanish settlement.

Our guide introduced us to the Spanish

and the French

who both occupied Northeast Florida.

We learned some Spanish construction skills

and crafts such as weaving

 and candle-making.

Many students purchased fun souvenirs from the gift shop during lunch.

We enjoyed a peaceful bus ride back to school, thanks to our favorite game.  ;-)