Pearl Sample kids take trip back in time

Pearl Sample Elementary School second-graders took a trip back in time Wednesday thanks to the staff and volunteers at the Museum of Culpeper History in downtown Culpeper.

Museum employees transformed the backyard into an indigenous haven by offering visitors a rare look into Native American lifestyles.

Behind the museum, a number of students climbed into a dugout - a carved out tree used as a canoe - while others grinded corn or sat around a pile of wood and stones used for campfires.

While they squatted in the dugout, several zany students sang "Row, row, row your boat," along with museum volunteer Pat Treacy.

Across the yard, second-grader Kole Ludwig - armed with a mortar and pestle - crushed several yellow kernels producing flour, a common Native American custom used in cooking.

"I learned that you can do different sorts of things with corn," he said.

Pearl Sample second-grade teacher Jackie Ovalle said the museum's Native American display "ties in perfectly" with the Virginia standards of learning and her lesson plans.

"It's nice having this resource in our county to help students learn about how Native Americans used natural resources," Ovalle said.

Ovalle said the nearly two-hour field trip was also a great hands-on learning tool.

After students listened to museum volunteers and staff as they discussed the past, they got a chance to create their own pieces of art.

Second-grader Allison Woods - holding a bottle of Elmer's glue and a handful of lentils - dotted her paper plate with the white adhesive before she carefully placed corn and beans on the disposable dish creating a unique design.

"I like learning about the foods that Indians used," she said, as she produced her masterpiece.

Inside the museum, education tour coordinator Gloria Cooper also talked about Native American lifestyles.

The students learned how Native Americans used berries as ink to communicate through picture writing.

The students also learned about Culpeper's first people, the Manahoac Indians, and how they set up tribes along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, a vital resource for transportation and food.

"(Native Americans) would build villages next to rivers and forests so that they could hunt, fish and cut trees down," said Cooper.

Cooper also discussed an important Indian staple: the cattail: a flowering, wetlands plant used by Native Americans to weave baskets, burn as torches and for nourishment.

As a former educator, Treacy says elementary students should know how Native Americans lived.

"If they don't know about it already, it is time that they do," she said.

Rhonda Simmons can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 125 or .