Kids: Gold Rush Day

As promised, I bring you the rest of Gold Rush Day!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately I'm not allowed to post pictures of student's faces so this post will be full of half faces, hair in face, hat covering face...etc. It makes me sad that I can't share some of my favorite pictures with you. I totally understand why there is the rule, I just wish it wouldn't mess with my blog post ;)

The day started with a pancake breakfast, gold miner style!
I'm not so sure gold miners had chocolate chip pancakes though...


Then the students got to make their own pouches to put the gold they got in.



As the kids finished up eating and getting their pouches together, "gold" got placed into the dirt for them to mine out later.



My husband played Sheriff. He threw kids in jail for just about anything. The kids started cheating on their games so he would throw them in jail.



One of the activities outside was washing! I loved this one. They had to take a rag, soak it, scrub it 5 times with soap, run it across the washing board 5 times, rinse, ring, and hang. I've never seen boys so into washing things!






Random side note: This was my grandmothers washing board. I absolutely love it.
I think this is the first time I've ever seen it used though.











The kids panned for gold. I've never seen kids so excited to find rocks painted gold.

















One of the activities that they never got around to was using the spittoon. One of the mothers had to try though. She took a gummy bear and spit it towards the spittoon... and she made it in!

If you look closely you can see the red streak of the gummy bear going past the lower part of the door.



And because I just couldn't help it...





Next was lunch!

The parents made stew and chili and cornbread for the kids to eat. Yummy!





After lunch we headed back inside to do some Chocolate Chip Cookie Mining!

This activity is quite fascinating. Each kid starts out with $19. Each one gets to buy a type of chocolate chip cookie. There were 3 different types and each one cost a different amount. Then they get to pick which tools they want to use; flat toothpick, round toothpick, or paper clip. They can only use this tool (no hands!) so which tool they pick is very important. Each tool costs a different amount and they can only buy 2. Then they get to choose how long the want to mine for, each minute (up to 3) costs a different amount.

Then they get to mine!





After 3 minutes they count up how many chips they mined out. Each chip is worth $2, so they get to see if they got their moneys worth! (If you want the exact directions for how this game is done, shoot me and email and I can get it for you)

This was the winners cookie:



Then both 4th grade classes got back together to sing some Gold Rush songs. I still have these stuck in my head!



And this would be my husband playing guitar. :)

Thanks guys for letting me hang out all day! It was so much fun and I learned a ton!