Athenree Homestead volunteers transform into early settlers of the farming era when teaching students come to visit.
For the second year, Katikati College Year 8 students visited the homestead on a field trip related to their social studies curriculum.
Local volunteers Chris Bedford and Di Logan donned period costume and acted out roles of original Athenree Homestead owners Hugh and Adela Stewart.
“We pretend we’re looking for new servants and we want to give the young people an idea of the jobs they might have to do if they worked at the homestead,” former teacher Di says.
“It’s a lot of fun, and you can see the students learning from the experience of being on site.”
After a brief introduction to the life of the Stewarts, students hear how they came to Athenree.
Di takes one group around the inside the house and gets students cleaning the silver, teaching them to wash clothes by hand and to learn the layout of Hugh and Adela’s bedroom... “where the discovery of the chamber pot under the bed always evokes some gasps”, Chris says.
Katikati College learn how to handwash clothes.
Outside, Chris points out Mauao in the distance and asks how Hugh and Adela would have got to Tauranga.
“The students are surprised to learn and that it would have taken up to five hours to get there by boat, a far cry from the speedy comfortable car travel the students are used to.
“A visit to the horses in the back paddock provides an opportunity to discuss the role of horses in a late 19th century farm. Other pauses allow opportunity for the students to see old hand tools and consider all the jobs that Hugh and Adela Stewart did would have been done by hand.”
Chris says they always ask students what caught their attention to hear the variety of responses.
Di designed a quiz sheet teachers use in their classrooms .
Teacher Michael Low calls the homestead “’an amazing resource” for helping the students learn about life in the late 1800s and compare it with their lives now.
Athenree Homestead chairman Peter Morten says the board is delighted more young people are visiting the homestead and having a great learning experience.
INFO To bring a class to visit Athenree Homestead, contact Chris Bedford 021 1733 979.
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