Pleasant Valley One Room Schoolhouse

Field trips are always fun, especially when it is the long awaited day at Pleasant Valley Schoolhouse in Stillwater. Nothing like stepping back 120 years in time to understand more fully what life was for a pioneer child who was fortunate enough to attend school. We enjoyed pumping water, using an outhouse, and bringing in firewood and coal for our stove. It was interesting to see the kerosene lanterns and slate boards lining the classroom walls. The floor was wood as were our chairs and desks. We did our lessons for the day on slate boards and practiced orthography (penmenship) with a quill pen. Our teacher was "Miss Margaret" and she had many things to tell us about class discipline. Things were very different then! Children were spanked, made to wear dunce caps, or told to stand on tip toes with their noses pressed to the chalkboard. We had to stand and say "ma'am" prior to answering questions. Talking was forbidden and we were expected to work carefully and quietly. We found there were many contrasts between pioneer schools and schools of today.

Using our McGuffy readers

Practicing on the slate boards

Methods of discipline

Lunch time gave us opportunity to eat our authentic pioneer lunches and to have fun playing with the wooden hoops, feed sacks and shouting, "ANNIE, ANNIE, OVER" as two teams tossed a ball over the roof of the schoolhouse. That was definitely a favorite.

Participating in a Spelling Bee was great fun. Congratulations to Isabella for winning. She received a certificate from Miss Margaret.

It was a wonderful day and we left with greater appreciation for the strength of character that was a trademark of the pioneers.

Fulcums, Loads, Levers, and Effort

Recently in science, we studied simple machines and forces. We actually did an experiment to determine how the position of a fulcrum affects the effort on a load. We wrote our hypothesis in our manuals, divided into groups and set to work.

Our materials were as follows:
1. Empty spool of thread-fulcrum
2. 12" ruler was lever
3. Load was a paper cup filled with pennies and labeled "load"
4. Effort was pennies to be placed in paper cup labeled "effort"
5. Clay to hold fulcrum in place

The "load" and "effort" were placed at opposite ends of the lever and the fulcrum was underneath the lever. We moved the fulcrum to designated lengths from the load filling our "effort" cup each time with pennies until the "load" and "effort" cups were balanced.

Results: We found that the closer the fulcrum was to the load, the less effort was involved in moving the load.

We recorded our findings in our manuals and had some interesting discussions regarding how this applies to "real life". Several students were going to go home and use levers and fulcrums to move heavy objects in their yards or garages. I hope parents were included in these endeavors!