LIVERMORE FALLS
Fifth-graders here were anything but lost on Wednesday afternoon as they flaunted their knowledge of early explorers at a shipwreck soiree.

For the past five weeks, the 20 Livermore Falls Elementary School fifth-graders in Karen Hardy’s social studies classroom have been studying the brazen explorers who ruled the high seas from 1400 to 1600.

But instead of just reading the pages of history books, where these explorers like Christopher Columbus and Ponce De Leon have made waves, Hardy’s students dove right back in time and pulled on the capes and crowns worn by those legendary explorers to dry off.

On Wednesday afternoon at a shipwreck party hosted by Hardy and Janet Ventrella, a student teacher in Hardy’s classroom, students took a creative route to show off what they’d learned during the unit.

Posing as NBC Today Show host Katie Couric, 10-year-old Caylee Morris interviewed her fellow classmates, who had assumed the role of explorers.

As parents, teachers and their own peers watched, the students-turned-sailors responded to Morris’ questions in the first person, using information they had learned while doing research to write the six- to eight-page autobiographies they had to turn in for the unit.

Afterward, they had another round of interviews, this time with fifth-grader Holden Parker, who dressed with his jeweled paper crown and black and gold robe, made for a regal Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, a

real prince who lived from 1394 to 1460 and organized many voyages into uncharted waters.

The student-explorers read their persuasive essays to Prince Parker, in hopes of convincing him to hire them on to tend to the rigging or turn the ship’s wheel on one of the journeys he ordered.

Afterward, they partied like it was 1499, enjoying fruit, jerky and stew, foods that would have been eaten by explorers of that time.

Hardy noted, students enjoyed the unit because it was all-hands-on-deck and not just flipping through a history book and answering questions.

“They really took ownership over this,” Hardy said, her eyes touring the room as students, still wearing their crowns, feigned British accents, bit down on their jerky or pretended to be swashbucklers.

Students need to learn actively, she explained. Some who learn better by doing get a chance to shine during a unit like this, that combines writing, reading, history, oral presentation, art, drama and even math.

“I enjoyed it a lot. Social studies is my favorite subject,” said 11-year-old Nick Mitchell who studied and portrayed Sir Francis Drake. “I had a lot of fun doing this. It was cool.”

Mitchell admitted that this type of hands-on learning is fun to him and his classmates. “I was having so much fun, I didn’t even realize I was learning so much,” he said. “It taught us some acting skills and how to sound really good when we speak and that will help us in the future.”

The presentation at the party also gave students like Mitchell the chance to get a little creative. He assumed a hilarious British accent that left his classmates in stitches.

But Mitchell said he found time to laugh as well, though he held back during his exchange with the two interviewers.

“They look really funny,” he said with a grin about his classmates’ costumes. And then with a laugh, “I can’t imagine what I look like right now.”

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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