11. Teaching children about daily life in the past
There are many activities in which children can take part which allow them to experience life as lived in early America. For example, in the colonial and post-revolutionary eras, and throughout the days of the early western frontier, American homes were lit at night mostly by candles. Only the wealthiest Americans used candles made from expensive beeswax. Less affluent families made their own through candle dipping. Candle dipping, a tedious, messy, and smelly task, used tallow from melted animal fat, though occasionally beehives were harvested in the forests, the honey eaten, and the wax used for light. Americans also churned their own butter, dyed their homespun fabrics, and made cloth on looms. In varying degrees, school children can participate in similar activities at home for a hands-on learning experience.
Those children who did go to school in early America encountered an environment far different from today. The one-room schoolhouse, dunce cap, personal slates for writing and doing arithmetic, and even McGuffey’s Readers can be simulated to demonstrate how Americans once learned their reading, writing, and arithmetic. Starting with the youngest children, the activity is the start of presenting how education in America itself evolved over time, an important part of America’s history, as well as its present. By the way, McGuffey’s Readers remained in widespread use through World War II, and still sell some 30,000 copies each year They are favored by home-schoolers and in some private schools in the 21st century.