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Homeschool Adventure in Jamestown Settlement
I have dreams of what homeschooling my four kids will look like in five to ten years. A few months of the year will be spent learning about the history, geography, basic language, food and politics of a country, and then, we go to spend a few weeks there. My husband will likely never have the flexibility to do that, which means these adventures will be just me as acting as the pilot and co-pilot. I’m not unfamiliar with solo trips with the kids; back when we lived in New Jersey we would drive to the D.C. area so often that I bought a membership to the Smithsonian National Zoo. When my third child was still a few months old, I took a 1,000 mile roundtrip road trip down to visit my husband’s grandmother in Durham, North Carolina from our Central New Jersey home. I’ve also done a solo flight with all three kids to Chicago and with two kids to South Carolina.
This week’s trip is my first time with all four kids by myself; it was a bit of a test run. I’ve been planning it since the early summer when I saw that Colonial Williamsburg had special days and programming for homeschoolers in the spring. The fall dates didn’t work out for us because of the Jewish holidays, but these late-winter dates were perfect.
Since booking this trip months ago, life happened. We bought a house and close on it in three weeks. I’m exhausted because the baby doesn’t sleep well and we’re all recovering from a recent (three weeks ago, now) bout with the flu. I really regretted booking a vacation this far in advance.
We arrived at our hotel after a three-hour drive at 9:15, well after my kids’ bedtime. The baby cried two of the three-hour trip, but my other three kids were perfectly behaved. When we checked into our condo I realized the first benefit of booking our vacation this far in advance: we got a three-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in a high-end vacation resort for $99 a night. All of the kids settled in to sleep, and I was able to take a bath in the jacuzzi tub in the master bedroom.
Today was the first of our three days here, and we spent it at Jamestown Settlement. Because I was dreading this trip for the last few weeks, I didn’t do much in the way of investigating or researching. Thankfully, a Twitter follower hooked me up after I mentioned this trip, and was even able to score us “media” admission tickets. Even without the free tickets, the day would have cost less than $30, in part thanks to the fact that three of my four kids are still free because they’re under six years old.
We spent hours in the museum itself, which, in retrospect was a mistake. I had no idea what was waiting for us outside. There are three perspectives in the museum: life as an English settler, life as a Native American, and life as an enslaved African. Throughout the museum, you see life in Jamestown from those perspectives, and it’s incredibly interactive. There are recreated homes of all three types of people, and inside you can see (and often touch) where they slept, what they ate, and what their surroundings were. There were plenty of short video presentations throughout the museum, and practically no hands-on screens. That’s always a frustrating part of modern museums; designers think that that’s how kids learn and how parents want them to learn, but it just turns into kids getting sucked into the screens and me fighting with them to get off. They don’t actually learn anything except how to press buttons and swipe.
When we ventured outside, I realized what a mistake it was to spend so much of our time inside touring the (incredible) museum. Outside was even more interesting! They had three areas to explore: a replica Powhatan village (that’s 1/7th the size of the original), a replica ship like the one that brought the first settlers over, and a reproduction of the James Fort, where the settlers first lived. There were so many interactive activities all over, like grinding corn and spices, exploring the boat (where you can lay down the bunks, steer the rudder, and climb throughout), and even watch a musket fired. There were reenactors across the three locations ready to answer questions and explain what life was like in the 17th century.
I posted a lot of videos on my Instagram stories and saved it as a highlight on my page, so you can see some of today’s photos anytime.
Tomorrow, we head to Colonial Williamsburg!
Published in General
You are either incredibly brave or certifiably crazy. More like a Williamsburg frontier mother circa 1790 than a present day Park Sloper. (of course, what Park Sloper has 4 kids rather than just the one designer child?)
Oh nice! I’m going to be around the area for spring break. I may check this out.
Still have a picture of our son, about 9 years old, in a tri-corner hat sitting in a dugout canoe at Jamestown. We homeschooled him the entire 12 grades and places like Jamestown and Williamsburg were such great hands-on history “lessons.” Letting them explore and you won’t know what they’ve absorbed until sometime later when they’ll recite back to you some tidbit you never heard/saw/read while there. Enjoy!
How did they have enslaved Africans at Jamestown?
I grew up in Virginia Beach and we went there and to Williamsburg every year. Both are good but Williamsburg is much better.
But be careful there. I was there with my daughter and there were lots of people walking around pretending to live back in the old days, and there were others in costume but just there to talk about the old days. In one out-of-the-way spot we were at a place where tobacco was harvested and processed and were in a building that replicated slave quarters. A lady in costume was there and I innocently introduced her to my daughter, “Look, here is a woman acting the part of a slave.” Oh my god. Don’t do that. I forgot about the horrible racism in northern Virginia and that woman unleashed on us that she was NOT a slave and how dare I say such a vile thing and what kind of human are you, etc. I wanted to say, lighten up Francis, but I simply muttered an apology and forced her to give her spiel to us despite being in a tizzy.
To me Jamestown is one of lest interesting out of the major attractions around there for Kids. I enjoyed it as an adult but because of the lectures. Yorktown, Williamsburg, even the Navel Museum in Newport News are all so much better, for at lest for young boys. I don’t know if they still have it. However they used to have a huge week long event were the Williamsburg commons was packed full of reenactors. The only time I went there as a kid (9 year old homeschooler), it was during that event. Way better than the normal daily stuff. Walking thru all these tents and there being about ten times more reenactors than Williamsburg normally has.
Williamsburg is the best week long, solo vacation I have had to date (I take a lot of those). Granted, I spent two days with my cousins family, so that had something to due with it.
There wasn’t too much conversation about it. While there were people dressed as Native Americans and English settlers, there were no enslaved Africans.
The folks at Jamestown actually saw this post and wanted me to post this for you:
I hope you visited (or if not, will visit) Charleston. The place oozes history, not to mention some of the best seafood restaurants . . .
Fascinating. I don’t remember learning that. Thanks!
We took our kids (who are about Bethany’s age) from the west coast to Williamsburg several times when they were young. Hands on and participatory stuff is great! There and elsewhere (We were big fans of hands on museums) we had to drag them away when the museum closed.
We took our 3 daughters there in 2012. Had a great time. Our baby was 9 years old. At a souvenir shop, they had replica hats of the period. She immediately ran over and put this one on. She wouldn’t take it off, so we bought it. She didn’t take it off all week, even at McDonald’s etc:
Here’s a picture of all of my girls with their hats from the souvenir shop. We returned all of them. Except for the little one, of course, because we could not get it off of her head. She loved that thing.
The trip was worth it just for the hats.
Just adorable.
My oldest daughter was 13 years old there, and 6’2″. She was a little sensitive about her height at that point, and she loved all the frilly stuff from that era.
We were skeptical about our daughters home schooling her five children, but the public schools in Chicago where she lived were really terrible. She seemed so hands off and low key we remained skeptical and didn’t know the effect until they moved to South Bend, Indiana and the two oldest entered a small outstanding high school where they moved immediately to the top of their classes and then some. They also did trips to historical places in and out of Chicago as well and benefited because they had become curious and interested in everything. We’re sold on home schooling, but following some of the excellent materials pulled together over the years by, I guess, professionals.
I admire what you are doing for your children and it is also for the benefit of the rest of us. Thank you for the post.
That sounds awesome. You are a treasure. Any parent willing to do something like this is who our culture should be lifting up as our heroes. And yet, we would rather praise someone who can scarf down 45 hotdogs in 5 minutes.