Published Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Herald Staff Writer
Some people long for the so-called good ol' days, but after eighth-graders in Hermitage Middle School created colonial-era crafts, they were happy being in present times.
"It was just too much work for the simplest things," said 14-year old Lisa Puhak. "I enjoy things like watching TV and playing on the computer."
A Colonial Days Craft Exhibition was put on Tuesday by the students of language arts teacher Alissa Sgro of New Castle and American cultures teacher Nicole Phillips of Hubbard to help students understand what it was like during that time period.
"We decided to mesh our classes together, combining things they read in the books in my class with the things they are learning in the cultures class," said Mrs. Sgro, who added that her students are reading "A Witch of Blackbird Pond." Ms. Phillips class is studying the colonial era, near the time period the book is set in.
"Our project was making dye and ink. We used grapes for purple and cherries for red," explained Katie Boardman, 14. "We smashed walnuts to make a different color brown. I thought it was really fun, but it was really hard. (Back then) they didn't have that much time for fun and games. It took them all day to do this."
Fred Theiss and classmate Luke Disilvistri weren't thrilled when their names were picked to work on the knitting craft of the colonials, but it grew on them.
"Three inches took me three hours. That's an inch an hour," said Luke. "I wouldn't like to make a sweater."
"I picked it up in about an hour," said Fred, who plans to continue his newfound hobby.
"At first the boys were mortified, and now they're proud of it because all the kids think it's cool that they could do this complicated thing," said Mrs. Sgro, adding that students had a week to prepare their projects.
The students also realized in that week that many of the projects, which included candle-making, creating wax seals, fashioning gravestones and baking colonial corn pudding, would be a lot of work without the help of modern conveniences.
"I wouldn't really want to live back then, 'cuz there's no computers and stuff. There's nothing to do -- just work all day," said Bryan Joseph, 13.
Miss Boardman learned from her dye and ink project that it took a lot of work to get things done back then.
"It took them all day to do this. We take a lot for granted," she said.
Her partner Angela Nelson agreed.
"They didn't even have the appliances to make this easier like we do," she said.
Mrs. Sgro plans to continue doing this first-time project because of how much her students learned.
"I think it means a lot more to them to create something themselves than just to read about it. They had a lot of pride in their projects and all the kids were interested in one another's projects," she said.
"I'm really proud of the effort they put forth."