Museum - John A. Logan College

*John A. Logan College

Pre-Visit Information

What to expect at Purdy School

If you haven’t visited us at Purdy School before, you will find a special day has been prepared for your class! The Purdy school teachers provide a trip back in time to suggest an experience similar to students who attended one-room schools across rural America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The teacher will meet the students at the door of Purdy school and when the bell rings, students line up by boys and girls to enter the building.

Inside the classroom, the students will simulate the various age groups of a one-room school, and the teacher will skillfully coordinate a variety of activities from reading, arithmetic, geography, art and music for this multi-age group. Most importantly, students will come away with a sense of experiencing history.

Each day and each teacher will be different. In reenacting the typical routine of the one-room school day students learn how various ages worked together to share the teacher’s time.

To learn how classroom behavior differed, the students may be seated specifically by the teacher, they may stand to answer questions, and leave their seats on the appropriate side to practice reading at the recitation bench in small groups with the teacher.

Children use the McGuffey readers of the period, and work at their desks with slates and chalk, or compete at the chalkboard, and practice writing with quill pens and ink.

They may have a spelling bee, take part in a special holiday pageant, learn the geography of the counties around them, or participate in a craft activity.

Students can expect to hear about the differences in this classroom from the past, and some of the teachers share their first-hand experiences about attending a one-room school with their sisters and brothers right here in southern Illinois . There are stories of hardship and difficulty, joy and simple pleasures, and an overriding sense of family and responsibility that was a part of the history of the one-room school.

*John A. Logan College



			Pre-Visit Information


		What to expect at Purdy School If you haven’t visited us at Purdy School before, you will find a special day has been prepared for your class! The Purdy school teachers provide a trip back in time to suggest an experience similar to students who attended one-room schools across rural America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The teacher will meet the students at the door of Purdy school and when the bell rings, students line up by boys and girls to enter the building. Inside the classroom, the students will simulate the various age groups of a one-room school, and the teacher will skillfully coordinate a variety of activities from reading, arithmetic, geography, art and music for this multi-age group. Most importantly, students will come away with a sense of experiencing history.





	Each day and each teacher will be different. In reenacting the typical routine of the one-room school day students learn how various ages worked together to share the teacher’s time. To learn how classroom behavior differed, the students may be seated specifically by the teacher, they may stand to answer questions, and leave their seats on the appropriate side to practice reading at the recitation bench in small groups with the teacher. Children use the McGuffey readers of the period, and work at their desks with slates and chalk, or compete at the chalkboard, and practice writing with quill pens and ink. They may have a spelling bee, take part in a special holiday pageant, learn the geography of the counties around them, or participate in a craft activity. Students can expect to hear about the differences in this classroom from the past, and some of the teachers share their first-hand experiences about attending a one-room school with their sisters and brothers right here in southern Illinois . There are stories of hardship and difficulty, joy and simple pleasures, and an overriding sense of family and responsibility that was a part of the history of the one-room school.