Day 13: Gettysburg

In my life I have been lucky enough especially these past two years to walk on hallowed ground, and today from the minute we started our bus tour I couold feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and although its full of monuments and you see the modern world all around you can still feel the importance of this place. I am a huge fan of the movie Gettysburg, and yes I know it’s hollywoodized but still it gave me a pretty good idea of what happened, and now between what I remmber of it and the story that our guide laid out for us and actually being there, wow if that doesn’t get your heart racing then you better consider get it checked. I could picture in my mind where all the different units were and the progression of the battle and just how close the South came to winning those first two days. For me though that third day and the “Bloody Angle” I can almost see Picketts troops making that charge and seeing them go down row after row. The most powerful place for me was when we were standing on top of “Little Round Top” the view from there was mind blowing.

For the classroom I know that a couple of the folks on this trip already have done batle re-enactments for years now and I had flirted with the idea but now that I have been there and have a much better detailed vision of the battle in my mind I would like to take all of our Social Studies classes at Connect over to Mineral Palace Park , put them into groups assign them roles and have them re-enact different aspects of the battle.

I will come back here again with my family and let my boys see one of the most powerful historical sites in our countries history.  

Published in: on June 19, 2008 at 5:21 pm Leave a Comment

Day 12:Wintertur

 

What an amazing place and what an amazing legacy to leave behind for us to enjoy. To be quite honest I had never even heard of this place before going on this trip but I am very thankful that I got the opportunity to visit it in person. The thing I most enjoyed is how when Mr Du Pont created a room for the Museum he didn’t just place furniture and objects in it he would actually get the doorways, the trim nd any paneling and move it all over to the room and recreate it. The gardens  re also breathtaking and the time and effort put into them is mind blowing I only wish I could see them in the Spring or even the fall.

When it comes to the classroom and how I would use elements of this day in mine, I would have to say the archealogy lesson was by far the best one of the activities we did today. The objects and the flip charts with the big world map integrated several skills which touch on several social studies standards. I might even get more specific with it and narrow it down to Colorado and use objects created here in our state at different times and have the kids figure out when and where it was made.

We finished the day off with a great dinner all together as a big group, I would suggest there be even more big dinners like this on future trips to give the group a chance to mingle with each other.

 

Published in: on at 5:10 pm Leave a Comment