Field Trip: Historic St. Mary's City

We went to Historic St. Mary's City for our field trip this week for their "Homeschool Day".

 "The Maryland Dove is a re-creation of a late 17th century vessel commemorating the Dove of 1634, which accompanied Lord Baltimore’s original expedition to Maryland" according to the website.  All the personnel at St Mary's City act and speak like they are in character for the 17th century. And oooh the costumes! Aunt S would have enjoyed that.

 The original Maryland Dove was lost at sea on its way back to England. It had a crew of 9 and was a cargo vessel.  The hold would have been locked during the voyage to prevent pilfering.

 They had several workshops for the kids around the town.  We learned traditional 17th century circle dances and they were so fun to practice. I looked around the circle of moms and kids and everyone was smiling! The kids made corn husk dolls:

 And played traditional 17th century games: 9 pins

Graces:

Quoits:

Hoops:

They had reconstructed all the houses that made up Maryland's first capital city. Some were complete and some were just frames to give you an idea of what the city would have looked like.

Of course we had to try out the stocks. We didn't have any rotten fruit to throw so corn husk dolls were used.

Small colonial shop:

We visited the Native American village and learned from those guides as well.  Here they are making cornmeal mush.

Playing Native American games like "AtlAtl". Big sister A was a natural at it.

I don't remember what this one was called. Something that meant throw the corncob through the hoop.

We drove over the "Plantation" example and found the biggest orb weaver that any of us had EVER seen. I couldn't believe how decorative its web was.  It was incredible.

Hay storage shed on the plantation. We told the boys that their might be more orb spiders, like the ones we saw out front, hiding in the hay loft and they looked startled and climbed down from the bales.

The plantation had a lovely garden and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to the characters on staff about what and how they were pickling, herbs they were growing, and which poultry the colonists would have brought with them (Hamburg chickens).