In Photos: Dobbs Ferry Middle School Colonial Encampment Day

See a slideshow of the event above. (And if you click on the video clip...just be warned, it's not for the faint of heart).

Read more about Colonial Day in the school's press release (written prior to the event) below:

Dobbs Ferry Middle School 7th graders will participate in a “Revolutionary Encampment” this Thursday, April 5th to give students a hands-on experience and up-close view of life during the Colonial and Revolutionary War Eras. Re-enactors dressed in period costumes, as well as local historians Mary Donovan and Richard Borkow, will help make history come alive for the students as the campus softball field is transformed into a makeshift colonial village. 

Students will rotate through a number of learning stations every half hour. They include stops at the Blacksmith, Cooper, Revolutionary Medicine, Soldier’s Food Ration/Fire Cakes, Colonial Cooking, Colonial Games, Spinner, Spying/Writing and Revolutionary Soldier.  

The school is coordinating this even with the Living History Education Foundation, New Windser Cantonment and Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Parks which have provided the materials and reenactors. Funding was also provided by the Dobbs Ferry Schools Foundation and the Dobbs Ferry PTSA. The Revolutionary Encampment, an interdisciplinary project, has become an annual event that both students and teachers participate in wholeheartedly from donning tri-cornered hats to marching with muskets and churning butter.

The one-day re-enactment is the culmination of a month-long unit on 18th century history that is part of the 7th grade curriculum each spring. According to Middle School social studies teacher and event organizer Katia Trevino, “This is our third Colonial Fair and it keeps getting bigger and better. The different workshops give students a unique opportunity to travel back in time and experience for themselves many of the things they’ve been reading about and learning in the classroom.” 

This Thursday, students will find Middle School English teacher Rachel Lief schooling them in the art of using invisible ink for spying on the enemy and passing secret messages to fellow soldiers on the battlefield. In another workshop math teacher Lynette Colon, in a cap, petticoat and long dress, will assist students in making “johnnycakes,” a simple recipe combining flour and water, which was a typical soldier’s meal when food rationing was in effect.

Students will be able to utilize their math skills to compute the measurements in the recipe so that it can be expanded to serve more people. “Each year after the Fair is over I hear students comment how amazed they were to see how much harder everything was back in Colonial times and how ‘cool’ it is to see the way people really lived,” Ms. Trevino said. “We hope our Revolutionary Encampment experience will be as memorable for this year’s 7th grade and that it will keep our local history alive for Dobbs Ferry