Living in Today and Yesterday #2 - Barkerville, BC

Barkerville 1865

"People have to be strong
in the olden days to break
the sticks."

The Water Group started to look at Barkerville, a historic town in British Columbia. It was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush around 1860s. We focused on the buildings and discussed how they differ from the buildings that are built nowadays. The children noticed that the structures were all made of wood back then and not very colourful. The roads were muddy and bumpy and people made steps and ramps in front of the houses. 

To further this idea, the children reconstructed Barkerville. They made buildings and other structures out of different kinds of sticks. The miniature town will be displayed in the science room. 

Living in Today and Yesterday #1

We have begun our new unit: Living in Today and Yesterday (Then and Now). The children will explore the similarities and differences between the way people lived long ago and the way people live today.


The Water Group brainstormed what they know about the past and made comparisons as to what they did as a baby and to what they do now. We read the book When I was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of her Youth by Jamie Lee Curtis and the children made their own book telling their own changes of growing up.

To further the concept of looking into the past, we created a timeline. The children pretended to travel into the past by a time machine to find the year they were born. As we were traveling in the time machine,  the children chanted enthusiastically, "Traveling, traveling, traveling to the past".