School day is April 30th at Cheadle Lake Park just east of Lebanon on Weirich Drive off of highway 20. Watch for the signs. $2.00 per person. We will be meeting at 8:30 in the parking lot to organize our group, get a final count, and head in. We do not have to stay as a group once inside, you are free to choose the presentations you want to see. One fun one for all the kids is the Infantry, as the kids get to learn to march, carry a civil war rifle (replica of course!), and take orders. The medical tent can be scary for younger kids, as they do discuss true facts in operations on the battlefield. Please bring a sack lunch--and if raining, something to sit on. You are welcome to walk back to your cars for lunch, but if it's nice, there will always be stuff to watch,see, and yes, sometimes 'do'.
From the NW Re-enactment group:
Schedule
Stations will be from 9am to 1:30pm in 25 minute intervals. We will fire the cannon to signal everyone to move to a new station. After a short break for organization we will have a skirmish at approximately 1:30pm. All school events will be complete at about 2pm. Lunch break is from 12noon to 12:30pm. Students will want to bring a sack lunch or money to buy lunch from the on-site concessionaire, however they will be limited to how many lunches they can serve in the allotted half hour lunch break.
There is limited seating for lunch, last year most kids sat on the grass but it wasn’t raining at the time.
Stations – Presentation stations will be all around the battlefield and on the perimeter of the camps. Each station will be clearly numbered so you can keep track. We hope have a menu of presentations that match the station numbers when you arrive. You can go to any of them you wish. Some will have large audiences but this didn’t prove to be a problem last year.
Artillery
Medical
Infantry
Cavalry
Civilian Life
Period Dance
Period Fashion
Music
War Reporting
Military music
Important notes to teachers and parents:
1) Our number one complaint from the reenactors doing the presentations was unruly or disinterested kids at the sessions which made it almost impossible to proceed. You are expected to either stay in groups or your kids must have supervision, (yours, not ours). I have instructed all presenters to simply stop their presentation if kids get out of hand or are disruptive. Keep in mind all of these presenters are volunteers who gave up a day of work, spent money on gas and materials and deserve due respect for their efforts. You are expending money and time as well and have a great opportunity to put 1863 in the hands of these kids, so please take advantage of it. Ask them to leave their cell phones on the bus or at home.
2) I strongly recommend you NOT take children from about 4th grade age down to the medical presentation.
3) I will attempt to stagger the bus arrivals over the course of the first hour to help spread the kids out into the presentations. Keep in mind there will be over 1,000 kids on site.
4) Please tell your students that everything in the camps and on the field is private property and not to touch unless the owner allows it. Some of the items you’ll see are not reproductions but actually from the mid to early 1800’s and invaluable. Also, at no point should a student handle a weapon or climb on, lean on or touch a cannon.
5) The cannon are loud. Enough said.
