Our three year chronological history study ended this Early Modern year in 1849. My grammar stage literature class reads books that go along with our history study. So when we ended the year reading By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman I knew what we had to do. The stage was set for a super fun and very educational unit culminating in Gold Rush Day in our classical homeschool co-op! Come along, pardner, mosey with me over to California and let’s see what we can rustle up!
Ahead of time, each student was told to dress for the gold rush and bring a small shovel for digging. I made Jamocha coffee just like the bitter drink that gave Jamoka Jack his name. At least that’s what I told the kids. I really made a thermos of hot chocolate. Another family made cornbread. Those were our mining breakfast treats – also known as snacks. A mom made pie to be served by the slice “in town”.
I painted a pile of craft rocks gold and mixed them in with a big bucket of playground sand. That was to be the mining material. I threw buckets and sieves in my kids’ little red wagon and loaded up my guitar. I bought a pack of aluminum pie pans on Amazon.
My daughter and I took scrap fabric and made small blankets, pillows, bandanas, and handkerchiefs to sell at our store. We even made a few small pouches to hold gold dust, just like the miners in By the Great Horn Spoon!
We meet at a park for co-op. A yard would have been an even easier setting. We started by acting like they were new to Hangtown Camp just like Jack and Praiseworthy. I promised to show them how to mine for gold, but first we needed to build a campfire and have some Jamocha for breakfast. Even though we could not actually light a fire in the city park, we gathered wood and passed around the hot cocoa. I pulled out the guitar and taught them the song Clementine. I sang the sad verses, they joined me on the chorus.
Next, I tied rope between the trees and gave them old sheets and blankets to hang over the waist high ropes. They used these for tents, just like in the book. They spread them out at the bottom and hammered in a few stakes I could find. We also also used rocks and backpacks, or whatever was available.
Next the mining began! I set out the 5 gallon bucket full of sand, dirt, gravel, and gold painted rocks. I passed out the aluminum pans for gold panning. They shoveled dirt from the bucket, added water from the big cooler (a hose would have been ideal), and shook it around, looking for the gold pieces. They saved the “gold” they found to spend at the “mercantile”. I had several cardboard box tops taped together, lined with aluminum foil, leading into a wooden box to try out a sluice. It didn’t last long, but gave us the general idea of how it would have worked. There are some great gold panning videos on YouTube where people still do this the old-fashioned way.
Our store or Mercantile was open for business (and manned by a mom). Knowing there were lots of gold rocks in the bucket and to imitate the inflation and price gouging in the 1849 California Golf Rush we priced our items high. The apple pie and the supplies we sewed were for trade. We advertised the pies as made by a genuine lady (see the book for the humor in that). We allowed them to trade supplies with each other and, after everyone had made two purchases at the store, they were free to come back until all the supplies were gone.
These kids worked very hard at mining and LOVED the store. And just as things were winding down, we sent in bandits! I put bandanas on some of the teens, gave them cap guns and let them go wild storming the camp and robbing the miners. They even pulled down the ropes and tied up a few of their younger brothers. As soon as the havoc reached the whole camp I chased out the bandits and restored order (they had to give back the supplies kids had purchased at the mercantile).
They could have played at mining camp for the rest of the day! They were sad to pack it up and move on with the co-op schedule. Several kids begged to do this every week, instead of regular literature class. I have learned through the years that these events are things that they remember. This type of activity enforces the history lesson, the literature they read, and is an economics lesson that could not be taught from a book! Happy mining camp!
