Homeschool is never confined to one room. We often move about the house for different subjects or when siblings need separated so they won't distract one another. But at the Harn Homestead in downtown Oklahoma City, all my kids and their cousins went to school in one room.
So pull out your slate and McGuffey reader and join us in the 1891 Oklahoma Territory.
Single file, please. Line up at the door when I ring the bell. No, no, no: boys over at the other door please. Only girls in this line.
Then all of my children (and cousins) filed neatly into the schoolhouse, past the pot belly stove, and took their seats, little ones in the front and bigger ones seated behind. They faced the teacher, who stood behind a desk that had belonged to Roy Rogers (a bit out of place, but fun).
We had a moment of silence and did the pledge, which did not have the words, "of the United States of America" or "under God".
Then the teacher went through the rules: talking out of turn, 1 lash (stick on knuckles); boys talking with girls during school, 3 lashes; failure to trim nails, wash face or have clean socks, 5 lashes; boy and girl consorting, 10 lashes.
After the rules were read, my children were considerably more quiet. It took a little bit of training, aided by play acting and the fact that mom was seated right behind, but that teacher had my children folding their hands on the desk when they weren't engaged in school work, and standing next to the desk to give an answer. She didn't make them bow or curtsy to the teacher first, though.
The teacher started with the day's maxim: waste no, want not. They talked about what it meant, then moved on to arithmetic.
Math was done on the slate. As the children got the answer, they would hold up their work so the teacher could see. When the correct answer was displayed she would nod and the child then erased the marks and waited for the next problem.
For spelling they got to write on the ancient chalk board at the front of the room, made of mud, straw and dung. They weren't allowed to write in the cracks or touch it with their fingers--like that would be tempting. During this segment I was more convinced that we need to focus on spelling.
My favourite part was reading from the McGuffey Reader. Each child stood to read his line. After one round, they got the hang of it and the story started to flow. I got to join in, taking a break from entertaining Popcorn with the slate and chalk. Thankfully, I didn't have Sintra. He was sleeping in the car while Jon called job interview candidates from the front seat.
We finished school with penmanship, then they all lined up again in their separate lines and filed out the door.
There's Popcorn avoiding another picture, and his beautiful cousin, Madalyn, next to him.Next we went to a farmhouse that was set up in the period. All the items were touchable and after a tour and a few instructions the kids were cut free and played in every square inch of the place. I never saw Gem set the table with such alacrity (Google it). We even got to go through the barn and looked at all the implements there, but it was set up for another tour so we couldn't touch anything.
There was much more to the property, but we hadn't paid for the general tour and they didn't just let us roam free, so we called it a day.
Thanks for joining us on our Harn Homestead experience. Next time there is a land run in Oklahoma and they begin setting up one room schoolhouses every five miles, let me know. Until then, we'll stick with school in more than one room.
