One Room Schoolhouse Day

The school that the kids go to is celebrating it's 150th year. Throughout the school year they have been doing things to help celebrate this milestone. One event that they did was showing the kids what it would have been like to learn in a one room schoolhouse. The kids could dress as pioneers and siblings would be put in the same K - 6 class along with other kids. They were so excited about it. 

I went to a thrift store to find a pioneer-y outfit for Kate who really wanted to dress up and there was nothing. So the night before, I scrambled to find something. She ended up wearing a white t shirt, an apron that was mine when I was little and a Banana Republic skirt that I wore the day I got married on the way to the temple. With some major pinning, of course. Then, little brother wanted to dress up and luckily his was a little easier to round up. He even let me part his hair on the side and use product. This picture sums up how excited they were to go to school that day. They were going to be in the same class together, play games and just have some good pioneer fun and they were ready for it. 

One mistake Kate made the night before, was saying she hoped they didn't get Mrs. So and So as their teacher because she is mean. Well, sticking true to the Stephens moded fashion, when it came time to switch to their one room schoolhouse classrooms they found out that they were with the mean teacher they hoped they wouldn't get. 

Long story short, when I went to pick them up after school, they were standing there looking the complete opposite than when I had dropped them off. They got in the car and were super quiet and bummed out. I asked how their day was and they told me how they got the mean teacher and all the other kids got to do all of these fun things, I mean, make feather pens, make baseballs out of yarn and then go outside and play with them, play marbles and Red Rover. All they did was do work sheets, play Button, Button, Who's Got The Button? and eat Gluten Free crackers. It was really hard to not totally start laughing at how moded their day was. They were so disappointed and all of the injustices they were pointing out really added to the awesomeness of the story. 

I told them that it sounds about right that that would happen to you, stuff like that has happened to their Dad and I all the time. It's just part of being in our family. Plus, it makes you have a really good sense of humor. If life went just the way they wanted it to all the time, you wouldn't have these awesome and moded stories to laugh about later. I also realized, that their childhood is happening and these are stories that they will always remember, it's good for them. I just wish I could have recorded the before and after. It was pretty amazing.

Here is a picture from the school's Facebook page. Kate and Sam are in the bottom middle square looking super bummed out. Haha.