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Washington Evening Journal
111 North Marion Avenue
Washington, IA 52353
319-653-2191
Second Grade visits Dover Museum
Clark Elementary Second Grade arrived at the Dover Museum April 19 bright and early.
This year, three groups of children visited. The annual field trip provides the students with hands-on chores from the eras of their grandparents and great-grandparents. Each group is divided into three smaller sets.
Students rotate through three areas of the museum. One set visits the depot where they learn about the telegraph, practice keying their name in Morse code and learn about the importance of railroads during the westward movement. The second set attends class in a one-room school room replicated upstairs in the museum.
Education in the “old days” is certainly different. The third set of students remains in the main room of the museum where activities such as churning butter, shucking, shelling, and grinding corn as well as working with “more modern” equipment such as a manual typewriter and a dial telephone. Time is short and everyone is on their toes trying to do accomplish all the jobs.
At the end of the program, the students line up to return to school. As they thank the museum volunteers, they are treated to a piece of baked bread spread with the butter they churned and a square of cornbread. As always, students do not have to sample the food unless they want to. Many of the students were very brave and tried the buttermilk squeezed from the butter after churning. Most conclude everything is tasty.
