Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sassy's class visit to "Ellis Island"

Sassy Pants class has been studying immigration and Ellis Island in social studies at school recently. To finish off the unit, their class took a "trip" to "Ellis Island".

Sassy had a BALL!

The teacher assigned each child a REAL person who visited Ellis Island, Sassy was given Annie Moore, the first woman (who was 16) to pass through Ellis Island. She was Irish.
The night before the big event, Sassy had to pick out an immagrent outfit and pack a "suitcase"- things real immagrents probably had with them. There was a list of suggestions, but Sassy is pretty creative and came up with a bunch of great stuff on her own! She used my old brown purse as a satchel and inside she put a drawstring bag filled with plastic gold coins, a hankie filled with plastic fruit and bread, another hankie with a plastic pearl necklace, a tea cup and tea party gloves, a journal and a pencil, and a shawl to keep her warm on the boat. Sassy was sure to put her passport (made in class) in her bag too.
Then she picked out her outfit. She raided her Auntie's "to donate" pile and found that super cute brown skirt and that white top. The hat came out of the dress up box at grandma's house and the jacket and boots are her own. She makes a pretty cute immagrant!
Sassy told me she couldnt smile in the picture- according to her teacher none of the immagrents smiled in *any* of their photos upon arriving at Ellis Island. Sassy figures they were too tired.
Then she went to school and the fun began!
There were several centers set up. The kids had to sign in, go to the weighing station, go to a health center where their temperature was taken with a red vine lol and....darn I'll have to ask Sassy what the other stations were. She said that some of the kids were sent back to "the detention center" for suitcases that were too heavy and incomplete paperwork or "health concerns" lol. She came home from school that day saying that it was the BEST day of 3rd grade EVER. I wanna be in Sassy's class!!
Poor Bossy Pants. His class didnt do that at all- his class had a "high tea" insted- when they finished reading The Velveteen Rabbit.

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