Students enjoy state’s history

Doug Tabbert

Fourth-graders at Hopeview Elementary School donned four-gallon

cowboy hats, austere missionary robes and feathered Indian

headdresses last week.

Four classes participated in a “walk through California,” an

interactive presentation focused on the state’s history. Each student

had been studying at least one aspect of California geography,

science or history for a week prior.

Portraying a Spanish soldier 10-year-old Bruce Stephans wore a

helmet Don Quixote would have envied and a regal goatee. Elizabeth

Goldman, 9, wore boots, a bonnet and large round ivory buttons on her

starched dress. Her enjoyment of “Little House on the Prairie” books

prompted her to chose to dress as a pioneer woman.

Mandy Brown, from California Weekly, a Tustin-based company,

orchestrated the event and ran competitions, led skits, initiated

dancing, threw a fiesta and facilitated time travel for rapt

students.

“It’s more fun than normal school,” said 9-year-old Devin King. “I

learned more because she talked really fast and you had to listen

really close.”

“Herman the time machine” enabled students to see different

Californias. Students witnessed and acted out gold rush fervor,

international influence, religious expansion and coastal life among

Native Americans.

Children get bored reading their dry text books, said fourth-grade

teacher Kristen Duggan, the historical tour of California brings

social studies to life.

Brown grilled teams on their specific area of expertise. “She said

a whole bunch of funny things,” said Elizabeth.

During the skit, based on a famous engagement in 1806, Brown

jokingly directed the young actors to kiss and hug. The red-faced

performers didn’t dream of it, but only squirmed and joined everyone

else on the border of hysteria.

After bravely answering questions and acting out skits, students

raced to what one boy called, “lollipop California,” and snatched

their luscious reward. If the bottom of the sucker stick was gold,

eureka! In gold rush tradition 50 points were awarded to his or her

team.

“I would want to live in that time because there were a lot of

showdowns and it would be cool to get rich; lots of people were

finding gold,” said 10-year-old Jake Shaver.