Colonial Day

Soooo, I had to plan Colonial Day for my 5th grader's class!  I had NO idea what to plan but ended up with several fun ideas thanks to google and pinterest!  We had 5 different stations and here is what we did:

1. We had 1 station with fun, old fashioned games - jacks, marbles, & pick-up sticks.

2. At another station, the kids made quills and wrote with them.  They cut feathers at an angle and cleaned out the inside with a toothpick.  Then, they dipped the quills in india ink and wrote on vintage looking paper.

3. The kids also got to make butter and taste test their creation!  In a small mason jar, pour 1/2 pint of room temperature heavy cream.  Add a pinch of sea salt and a marble as an agitator.  Shake vigorously.  The cream turns into butter!  We had crackers available for the kids to spread their butter on so they could taste it.  So cool!

4. The kids got to pretend to be silversmiths at this station and it was probably their favorite station!  They stamped their initials into silver bottle caps using steel stamps and a hammer.  (THESE are the steel stamps I purchased.)  Then, they used a thin black sharpie to trace their initial indentations and attached a magnet to the back of the bottle cap.

5. This ended up being A LOT more time consuming than I anticipated but turned out really cute!  To prep this station, I got 6x6" pieces of scrapbook paper and hole punched them beforehand.  It is a little tricky to figure out how many sides of the paper to hole punch for each paper so be careful!  At the station, the kids traced their initial using chipboard letters and then decorated their initial with colored pencils.  I planned for the kids to use yarn to put each square together into 1 large classroom "quilt".  However, they spent all their time decorating their initial and it turned out to be kind-of complicated anyway, so a couple of the moms ended up stringing the squares together with yarn.  It looked great after we finished!