Van Zant Elementary School holds annual Colonial Day
The doors to Van Zant Elementary School might as well have been a time machine on March 24 when the school held its annual Colonial Day activities.
Colonial Day is the culmination of the school’s fifth-grade social studies unit on early United States history where students dress in period clothing, eat a colonial feast, play colonial games, create colonial crafts and even listen to speakers who portray colonial figures.
Fifth-grade teacher Christine Keltos said when students were learning about the colonial time period, they formed groups to assume the roles of colonists coming to the new world, and throughout the activity, they learned how to interact with each other.
According to Keltos, the students simulated the daily work colonists would have done, such as farming, fishing and hunting, and the students also learned the benefits of working with other colonies and Native American groups or the consequences of attacking them.
“This kind of gives them a real-life experience of what life would have been like back then,” Keltos said. “It’s interactive and it really immerses the kids in colonial times.”
Keltos said students also get to talk about whether they would prefer life as a child in colonial times or what they experience in present day.
“Every year, I’ve done this with a new group of students and it’s kind of like a new experience because you get to see how excited they are to do it,” Keltos said.
While Keltos’ students completed an activity on tinsmithing, across the school in the all purpose room, another group of students listened to Jeffrey Macechak, the education director at the Burlington County Historical Society. While wearing colonial attire, Macechak went over several activities with the students, including how to march in place and hold imaginary rifles.
Macechak said he enjoys working with students, and currently the Burlington County Historical Society is even renovating an entire wing of its building to be a children’s history center.
“A big part of what we do is getting to specifically deal with teaching history to children,” Macechak said.
Another presenter at Colonial Day was historical reenactor Noah Lewis, who played the part of Edward Hector, an African-American soldier during the Revolutionary War.
Hector fought in the Battle of Brandywine and Battle of Germantown as a teamster and bombardier who drove ammunition wagons and helped fire cannons, and after his death, those in Conshohocken, Pa., named a street in his honor.
Lewis said the subject of African-American soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War isn’t often explored simply because many people don’t know much about it, so he tries to fill that niche with his lessons.
Lewis spoke to students about the 3,000 to 5,000 people of color who served the American cause during the Revolutionary War and how Gen. George Washington led one of the most integrated armies until President Harry Truman desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces in 1948.
Lewis said it was his hope that children gain a greater appreciation for each other from his lessons and from studying history.
“It was all of us pulling together that allowed us to win our independence,” Lewis said. “We needed each other and our power has always been in our diversity.”
