Today, I accompanied a group of grade 3 and 4 students to MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre in Ottawa’s east end. This beautifully scenic education centre is located on over 40 acres of land! They provide high quality, hands-on outdoor programming that is designed and delivered to compliment classroom learning in many sections of the Ontario Curriculum. This trip was focused on the life of the pioneers! The students were introduced to the beauty of the natural world, as well as our place in it.

The day began in the central cabin, where many of the students ask the all-important question: Did those animals used to be alive? All I will say is that we had a great little introduction to the fur trade…

After our initial gathering, we began a 5-station activity that introduced students to the many jobs that Canadian pioneers had to complete on a regular basis:

Next, we all worked as a community to build a log cabin! Families from Spain, France, and England worked well together, proving that many hands make light work.

We ended the day by practicing our penmanship, memorization, arithmetic, and proper classroom behaviour, including writing with our right hands only (as was the case years ago). All of this occurred in a 1-room school house that was built in 1886! Mistress Crabbtree felt more like a drill sergeant than a teacher…

Our day at MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre was very educational and taught us just how fortunate we are to live in the world our ancestors worked so hard to create for us!