Saturday night was our unit celebration.  That morning we had had our last run through during rehearsal and the kids were ready to roll!  This was going to be good, simple, and a bit different...little did I know how different!  A sort of comedy of errors took over the evening and what could we do but roll with the laughter.  I hope we're not developing a pattern here. Last year I  got stuck in my Queen Elizabeth dress and kept the guests waiting for an hour.  Then at our last unit celebration, my son's boot busted right before the guests arrived.  I had to sew it back together again.  My son couldn't believe how fast I had sewn it but we had guests waiting and the show must go on! 

     Let's start at the beginning.  Can you guess who we are?

     I allowed the kids to choose whomever they wanted to represent from our most current era of historical study, 1826-1850.  My son was Davy Crockett.  He has had this planned for almost a year.  In fact when he saw the gun and powder horn at the historical reenactor's booth, he asked if he could have them for his birthday in preparation for this unit celebration.  My daughter was Narcissa Whitman.  I didn't represent a particular person in history this time.  I focused on directing...and ahem, laughing.  More on that in a bit. 

     We began by calling everyone to dinner, just like a good pioneer cook would.  I put my son in charge of this, since I knew he'd be hankerin' to make a bit of noise!  He banged on a pan with a spoon and yelled, "Come and get it!"  Everyone seemed surprised by the lack of formality.  Formality, for pioneers?  Are you kidding?  Make yourself at home and sit down to some grub! 

     We had rabbit (chicken) stew (to represent a meal cooked on the trail), sourdough bread (to represent the infamous bread from San Francisco ever since the Gold Rush days), apple cider, and peach pie (to represent a homey dessert once the pioneers got settled). 

     The children had decided they wanted to stay in character throughout the evening, just like they've seen Lafayette do at Colonial Williamsburg. They used information they learned from one of their electronic field trips to put their characterization together. I was excited that they wanted to do this and I didn't even have to talk them into it!  I supported them the whole way and just let them take the course they wanted to take with it.  Little did I know where the path would lead...

   During dinner, everyone started asking them questions.  My husband asked why pioneers moved West.  Ah, a great opportunity to discuss Manifest Destiny, dwindling land supplies that were no longer fertile, etc. As my son started explaining the lack of land in the East, he got onto the topic of large families and he emphasized that all families back then had 10-12 children.  That made my parents and husband laugh, as he sounded so definitive about it. 

     After talking about that awhile, they started asking my daughter about who she was, because they had never heard of Narcissa Whitman before.  She was a missionary who traveled from New York to Oregon with her husband, to minister to the American Indians.  My husband asked her how much help her children gave her, (after all, everyone had 10-12 children back then to help on the farm).  She was sort of stumped at that, not being used to doing a first person characterization.  She said she had only been married a short time when they set out for Oregon, then she had a baby, but the baby drowned in the river on the way.  She said this so matter of factly with such intensity that I couldn't help but laugh.  Trying to compose myself, I encouraged her to express some remorse, like she did when our cat Slipper died earlier last week.   As she was trying to process that I added, "Lafayette added lots of emotion to his presentation.  He didn't just say things matter of factly."  She got it then and you could tell she was trying to work that into her character.  At that time my husband asked her if she and her husband had tried to have anymore children.  (I choked when I heard that question!)  She thought a moment, then very matter of factly told him, "Well...no!" (as if why would they want to try to have more children?) That just did me in and I laughed and laughed some more.  Everyone else laughed too, except the kids who thought we were nuts! My dad told her she needed to have more children to attain that required 10-12 amount to help around the farm.  She sat there trying to figure that out and then very matter of factly said that she adopted 7 children.  At this point she was asked lots of questions about those 7 kids and they were teasing her about whether she ever got the 10-12 children.  Finally we composed ourselves, finished dinner, and went on with the program.  

     Whew!  Time for a little composure with musical compositions.  My daughter read the history of "My Country 'Tis of Thee",

which my son played it on the fife.

Then my son read the history of "The First Noel", 

which my daughter played on the piano.

Then my daughter read the history of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" 

which my son played on the piano.

     Then the kids did the power point presentation, based on their recent research paper on the Comparison of American and Texan Independence.  My daughter had a couple of giggle points in here, when she discussed Lafayette, during rehearsals.  Whenever she mentioned Lafayette, she giggled, because she got to actually "meet" him at Colonial Williamsburg and he made our time there quite memorable when he called my son "the young historian."  (Actually she did a lot of giggling while at Colonial Williamsburg too.  I've heard that teenage girls do a lot of giggling.  I was relieved to hear it was a phase, because I can't imagine where she'd get the giggles from otherwise!)  She was still giggling when mentioning Lafayette during rehearsal Saturday, but she did a superb job that evening and got through the slide show without a single giggle!  (Those were to come later...)  I was willing to advance their power points for them but they wouldn't let me.  They insisted on doing everything themselves. 

     Then the kids did their character interpretations.  There was one point my daughter was always giggling through during rehearsal, and that is the moment where "Narcissa" says she was pregnant and gave birth.  Once again that part made her giggle, reducing me to laughter that I tried in vain to supress while trying to keep my camera still. (Due to reaching maximum capacity in my photobucket account, and wishing to retain the free service, I've had to take out a lot of videos.)

      After that I said with a smile, "The floor is open to question and answers...even though many have already been asked during dinner."  Then we all started laughing again.  My mom did ask "Narcissa" if she got to see her 7 children grow up.  "Narcissa" looked at me for a prompt because she was portraying Narcissa a year before she and her family were massacred.  So to be in character, she does not know what happens in her future.  Even though we've discussed this previously in preparation for the evening, it simply isn't the same as thinking on your feet with unexpected questions before an audience.  I reminded her to think about how Lafayette answered these types of questions by hinting about his future, expressing what he would hope or feared or desired while sort of hinting at the facts of what would be.  So she thought a moment and said, "I hope we don't have any Indian massacres that could destroy the family."  Then everyone looked at me, and my mom asked, "Is there a place for us to go to for answers?"  I guess our guests weren't able to pick up the hints. Hmmmm...then I got an idea.  I told them we could do this like the Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips.  They always have a question and answer session with a few 18th century characters and 21st century historians.  I told them I'd represent the 21st century historian to back up the 19th century characters.  That allowed the kids to stay in character and merely to give hints as to the future and I gave the extra details. 

     Then it was my son's turn to do his character interpretation of Davy Crockett.  There was one part which is a quote that I told him, during rehearsal, that he really needed to memorize instead of referring to his note cards.  It is long and fun. Although I couldn't talk him into it when we were planning his character several weeks ago, he now agreed it had to be memorized.  Within about 30 minutes he knew it perfectly and with excellent expression.  He nailed it for every rehearsal since then. However, during the unit celebration, what can I say?  We were on a roll. Poor guy.  He was doomed. When he got to his quote, I did a bad thing.  I looked at my dad, who was trying to suppress a smile...because my son was just SO good and it is a really fun quote and you HAVE to smile.  Well that just set me off again and to my shame I started to giggle, my son started to giggle, and, sigh, all was lost.  Here it is...

 My son insisted we pause the camera and begin again from the top.  He really wanted to do it perfectly.  I tried to cover myself by saying we were laughing with Lafayette all the time and he never missed a beat!  He thought that was funny and was able to loosen up a bit. Take 2! Roll 'em!

By this time my batteries were running down so I apologized profusely (in between giggles) and told him if he got more batteries for me, we'd do another take. I was hoping the time it would take to do this would help us to compose ourselves.  Take 3! 

     Whew!  Well, now it was time for Q & A with Davy Crockett.  There were lots of questions here because we found some great stuff on Davy Crockett.  Having lived here in San Antonio most of our lives and having visited the Alamo umpteen times, I wondered how in the world to present Davy Crockett in a fresh way, so that everyone would not be bored?  Like my son said in his speech, Davy had no intention to fight in the Alamo.  He was fed up with politics due to the Indian Removal Act and decided to come to Texas to explore and eventually settle with his family.  Like Lafayette in Williamsburg presents his story on the eve of Yorktown, "Davy Crockett" wanted to tell his story on the eve of the Alamo, before he even arrives in Texas.  Everyone wanted to know how he ended up at the Alamo, so once again I became the 21st century historian after he gave excellent hints. I explained that of course when Davy arrived, there wasn't much he could do to avoid the fight for independence.  As it was, Santa Anna was on the march across Texas and all the settlers rightly feared for their lives. Santa Anna threatened "no quarter" which means no one they battled would be left to live.  The Runaway Scrape occured, where all the settlers fled East as quickly as they could.  It was impossible to live in Texas during this time and not be caught up on one side or the other. This was a life or death situation for all and daily life as they knew it was suspended in fear of Santa Anna.  It was a lot of fun for everyone to learn something new about our legendary "hometown" hero from Tennessee.

     Interestingly, my mom asked about the Compromise of 1850 (I forget how we got to that).  I exclaimed, "We just learned about that this week!"  In fact, the next thing that happened was the very thing I blogged about previous to this post.  My daughter emphasized with big eyes "that Mirabeau B. Lamar lived up to his name.  Guess what his name is?" Then her eyes got even bigger and she exclaimed, "Bonaparte!" Everyone started laughing.   

Then my daughter gave a recitation on Henry Wadsworth Longfellows' "The Village Blacksmith." 

Finally the kids shared the crafts they had made.  Here is my daughter's patchwork quilt.  It is hand pieced and hand quilted.  It is still a work in progress...

Here is her yarn doll...

Here is a cornhusk angel my son made...

Laying down is a yarn soldier with a musket that my son made.  He made a smaller cornhusk soldier and wove a tent for him to sleep in...

He made this whirligig...

Here are the books that were used for this unit including history, dialectic literature, rhetoric literature and rhetoric government.  There are also a few movies we watched.

     I hope that by sharing our bloopers, you too will be encouraged to have a little fun with history.  If things don't go as perfectly planned, just enjoy the moment and make a memory!  I'm glad my kids were able to laugh about it too.  The kids have a new appreciation for the actor/interpretors at Colonial Williamsburg who can stay in character during questioning and laughter. They learned to let loose and laugh at themselves. They learned to keep giving it their best effort.  And I think that we all learned that first person interpretation is a lot of fun!