Fall becomes a very busy time of year for me and it really is a balancing act between my “real job” my “fun job” and my “farm job”.    I decided to check in on an event I was unable to attend and in doing so found some 4th grader blogs I didn’t know existed. Thankfully, these students were required to write about what they experienced and it provided me with some insight on what they actually take away from my 40 minutes with them:

“Our next station was a station about Theodore Roosevelt. It was my favorite station. It was the most interesting station there. We learned a lot about him. The guy who talked about him was dressed up as him. He had cool things laying out on the table. There was his knife, his revolvers, and his horse saddle. It was very interesting. He talked about him having asthma when he was little. He also had a lot more to say.”

~ Max’s 4^th grade blog

That was fun! Probably my favorite was the pike station, then Teddy Roosevelt, then pottery, then silver smith, then candle making. I loved going to Big Island Rendezvous!

~ Kjersten’s 4^th grade blog

Next we went to see Teddy Roosevelt. When we got there he told us how he grew up and what happened in his life. He told us about his famous bear hunt and how he didn’t want to kill the bear.

~ Jack’s 4^th grade blog

Whew!  I have perfected my work a great deal over the years by listening to my audience, finding those stories that truly resonate and of course, adding some funny stories into the mix to make sure they leave with smiles on their faces!   These kind of hands-on events really allow kids to experience history in a special way, and I hope they continue to develop programs like these nationally for kids to truly learn to enjoy our shared American heritage.