Caesar's Creek Pioneer Village
Friday, October 22, 2004; 9:30am – 2pm
Cost: $5 per student: babies, toddlers, preschoolers and parents arefree
Organized by: Laura Riesenberg

Bring a picnic lunch (there are no vending machines or food available)and dress for the weather. Learn about life on the Ohio Frontier. There will be live demonstrations, children's games (always a fun way to burnoff some energy), and hands on activities to excite and inspire students of all ages highlighting the early settlers and pioneers from Ohio in the late 1700's to early 1800's. There is a touring group who will be staffing the village in full colonial and pioneer dress. I have spoke with Shelley, the school days coordinator, and she is thrilled to have our group out on Friday, October 22 and she has said that she will try to make this day HOMESCHOOL ONLY (although when we visited a few years ago there were school groups there and it wasn't an issue). This was by far our favorite Ohio history "fieldtrip" and the lessons we learned at CCPV have stuck with us even years later. As an adult, I was amazed at the things I "didn't know" about the history ofour region.

Directions: From Cincinnati, Ohio: I-71 North to State Route 73, Turnleft onto SR 73, Turn left onto Oregonia Road, then right onto Pioneer Village Road.

Although the weather was a bit chilly and overcast, it was a great day for an outing to CCPV. We had an absolutely great turn out. After a brief orientation, we headed over to the school house. The school master certain strikes fear in all who enter and serves to reaffirm to my younger children who have never been in school that school isn't someplace they want to go! The Ridiman's showed up right after we toured the schoolhouse (Kas had made a wrong turn off the expressway) so we spent the rest of the day trekking around with them.

Our next stop was to learn about music from the period and the re-enactor played the penny whistle and dulicmer for us. From there it was on to "children's work" to learn about the tasks children from this period would have engaged in. It is hard to believe that by 2 years old, my unruly toddler would have been expected to chase away crows from the crop and to help with spinning. From there we went to play outdoor games which the children really enjoyed and helped to burn off some energy. Next stop, the Quaker Meeting house where we heard from a re-enactor portraying Betsy Ross. We left the meeting house and went to drive the oxen. Unfortunately, one of the oxen that we had seen during our previous visits had died and they were training a new oxen team, Cade was really sad about the oxen dying.

We went and enjoyed lunch and socialized with the other families. Then it was off to explore more of the villiage. We learned about harvesting flax and making linen, I can not comprehend having to make my clothes from a crop I grew in the field, let alone having only one outfit to wear! We then learned about rope making and ended our day learning about treaty negotiations on the frontier.

The kids had a ball and eveyone learned something new. Emily came home and wants some "frontier" clothes, so we are going to check into making some...or maybe I will see if ebay has anything to offer!

Check out some photos from our fun filled day! http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mrsmomof6/album?.dir=5f28&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/mrsmomof6/my_photos