Team Reed: Jamestown

We took our first Reed Academy field trip this week! We're studying American History this year, and just finished up learning about Jamestown and Native Americans. We do "school"

4 days a week and leave Fridays open for things like field trips, nature walks, extracurricular things like art classes or whatever. Josh doesn't have class on Fridays either, so it works out well. I really want to take advantage of our current proximity, so we decided to pack up and go to Jamestown for the day! It's only about 2.5 hours from Wake Forest...perfect for a field trip!

We decided to take the ferry across the James River. Hudson was not sure about it at first, but seeing that the cars could go on a boat that had a 'road' on it convinced him that it was pretty cool. Plus, we got to approach Jamestown from the water, the same way the colonists did 400 years ago! And, it was free, which Mommy and Daddy liked : )

(And, on the way back over, there was a truck on hydraulics (picture below) which mesmerized K, C, and H. They've learned about such things from watching "Cars", especially Ramone.

I honestly think they have the whole movie memorized!)

We chose to go to the Jamestown Settlement because it has replicas of the town, a Powhatan Indian camp, and the 3 ships the colonists came over on. Plus there are several 'tradesmen' scattered around reenacting skills that many of the colonists would have had. Very hands-on for my visual learners! We packed a picnic lunch and ate before we went in. There was a cool fountain out front and a plaza with flags from all 50 states. Then we went in, starting in the museum. There were several short films and cool exhibits to look through.

First stop after the museum was the replica of the Powhatan Indian camp. So cool!! They had several wigwams that you could go in, and each one had a place out front to grind corn. There were all kinds of animal skins everywhere, hanging on the walls, laying on the ground, piled up on the beds. Each one had a circle of rocks in the floor for their fires,and the roofs had a circle cut out to let the smoke out. There was someone there cooking some beans and what looked like tamales, and she demonstrated how they probably would have prepared a typical meal.

Next it was time to check out the ships. They have replicas of the Susan Constant, the Godspeed and the Discovery. It was amazing to think of 100+ people being on three small ships like that for five long months...