Students stage Colonial Fair

Trade booths, food, games and costumes. They all were part of the Colonial Fair that Ramona Community Montessori School and Mountain Valley Academy fifth-graders staged.

Joining them on Thursday, Jan. 21, were third-graders from teacher Bo Varnado’s Mountain Valley Academy class.

The students welcomed Ramona Elementary School fifth-graders from teacher Debbie Long’s class and shared what they had learned about Colonial times with their Ramona Elementary counterparts.

A private grant paid for three of the teachers — Nancy Lorenz-Smart, Laura Worthen and Varnado — to attend a weeklong training at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia this past summer. Teacher Kelly Hicks participated in the training several years ago.

Students in Hicks’ and Varnado’s classes created 13 trade booths and explained their work to other students attending the fair. Among trades represented were silversmith, milliner, blacksmith, baker, school master and weaver.

Students in Lorenz-Smart’s and Worthen’s classes prepared a Colonial feast and taught games played during the Colonial era.

The event represented project-based learning that reflects the state’s fifth-grade history standards.

The Ramona Community campus at 1010 Ramona St. houses two alternative schools offered by Ramona Unified School District: Ramona Community Montessori School for kindergartners through sixth-graders and Mountain Valley Academy for grades kindergarten through 12. More information about both programs is available on the district’s website, www.ramonausd.net, and at 760-787-3600.