Caz
Friday was our fortnightly EC (extra curricular) day with our distance ed group.   We had Living History Australia out to do a big presentation for the day, and it was great!  Living History Australia is a group of 4 people that generally go out to schools and bring history to live by getting in the garb of the day, and 'becoming' that character while talking to the group about what their lives were like.   They have a great display of real artifacts from the colonial period as well as reproductions of a few items.   The kids really got into their presentation and listened really well, which is saying a lot since it was 1.5hours long or about!


This gentleman was a miner in the 1800's.  He was American and had come over to Australia to work the gold fields in Victoria with his business partner after California got too chaotic.  He pulled off a reasonable American accent even.  


This man was an Irish merchant just trying to make a living with his shop here in 'the colonies'.   The ladies with him are his neice and a customer being helped into a nice new outfit (both victims..er volunteers! from our audience) Was funny, whenever a new character appeared he asked if they were married, because of course he was responsible for finding his neice a good husband!


The youngsters on the left have been nabbed by the local constable.  It appears they did not have their miners' license to present to him upon request!  Those are real cuffs from about 1850 give or take!

On the left& below, are Frodo & Sam having a go at a typical dance of the time... it was rather like a line/square dance.  They had quite a good time with it and even got us olds' involved lol.


And last, but not least, the younger students adjourned outside and had a fun time playing some games that kids back then would have played.  They played tug of war and collapsed into a giggling heap at the end. Then  they played a chasing game called 'wooly wooly wolf' which involved (as I'm sure you could guess) sheep & wolves ;)     Nice way to round up the day, by wearing them out so that mums' get a nice, reasonably quiet drive home! 

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