Michael's field trip

On Wednesday May 20th, Michael had is first field trip of the year.  I was able to get off work and go with him.  We went to a Celtic village.  I had not heard of this before, so I was very interested to see what it was all about.

Michael is off the bus and ready to go!!!  He was so excited for the field trip!!!!!

I love his smile!!!  At the beginning of the village a statue of what they think Celts used to look like.

This is the entrance to their little Celt village, nothing of the buildings are original, they had to rebuild them all in what they found was traditional houses back then.

This was our tour guide and she was great!!!  She was animated and looked like she really enjoyed what she does!

This is part of what they think the Celts looked like.  The Greek-Romans said that the hair and beards of the Celts were especially fascinating.  They usually had longer hair and either full beards or a mustache.

Here she is showing scissors for sheep.  They were really sharp and she had no problem passing them around to the first grade kids.  I think the adults chaperoning were A LOT more nervous about it!!!

This was a machine they used to sharpen their axes, swords, knives, etc.  You can see there was a foot pedal on the bottom to get it going.

The Cetlts that used to live here in Germany were long gone and there are only a few remnants and written words about them.  From all of this, they think this is what the men and women used to wear.

She was telling the children about having to haul in water from the rivers, etc.  That there was no running water in their homes back then.

She also showed them how they had to grind up corn, etc with rocks to make bread and how sometimes small stones got into the bread and broke their teeth when they ate.

Here they had many different kinds of furs they used to use for clothing and bedding.

This was most of the childrens favorite house, the black smith.  It was small enough most of the adults had to wait outside.  But they said it was very interesting.  The Celts were very advanced in the techniques necessary for the forging of bronze as well as iron.

After a brief lunch, they split up into groups and had a little hands on.  Here Michael was getting information on how to make a necklace.

He took some colored wool, got it wet and then had to keep compressing it into a smaller and smaller circle until it was hard.  It did it three times and she strung it up on a necklace for him.

Michael with traditional shield and sword.  

Michael taking a turn with grinding up the grain.  He said it would be hard work!!

At his next station he made a mold and then put an old Celtic image into it. It hardened and he was able to take it home.  He thought that was pretty cool!!

Michael with some of his buddies!!

They were also able to shoot bow and arrow.  Michael was the first one to hit the target and one of the very few who did!!!

After that we had a little time to kill, so off and playing tag they were!!!

Michael's class - they had a great time on the field trip and I was so glad that it only rained when we were inside doing other activities and not when we needed to be outside.  It was so fun to be able to go on the trip with him!!!