One Room Schools: Stories from the Days of 1 Room, 1 Teacher, 8 Grades

by Susan Apps-Bodilly

Overview

Have you ever wondered what it was like to attend a one-room school, to be in the same classroom as your older brother or younger sister, or to have your teacher live with your family for part of the school year?

In One Room Schools, Susan Apps-Bodilly chronicles life in Wisconsin’s early country schools, detailing the experiences of the students, the role of the teacher, and examples of the curriculum, including the importance of Wisconsin School of the Air radio programs. She describes the duties children had at school besides their schoolwork, from cleaning the erasers and sweeping cobwebs out of the outhouse to carrying in wood for the stove. She also tells what led to the closing of the one room schools, which were more than just centers of learning: they also served as the gathering place for the community. 

Susan Apps-Bodilly drew from the research compiled by her father Jerry Apps for his book, One-Room Country Schools: History and Recollections. Apps-Bodilly has geared her book toward young readers who will learn what students and their teacher did on cold mornings before the wood stove warmed them up. They also will find out how to play recess games like Fox and Geese and Anti-I-Over and will learn the locations of 10 former one room schools that can be toured. Apps-Bodilly also encourages readers to ask themselves what lessons can be learned from these early schools that have application for today’s schools?

One Room Schools will transport young readers back in time and make their grandparents and others of that generation nostalgic—perhaps even  prompting them to share memories of their school days.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870206153
Publisher:	Wisconsin Historical Society
Publication date:	12/17/2013
Edition description:	1
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	890L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Susan Apps-Bodilly has been an elementary and middle-school teacher for more than twenty years. She currently teaches second- and third-grade students. She has a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and holds a reading teacher license. When not teaching, reading, or writing, she loves biking or hiking in the woods with her family.

Table of Contents

1 The First Day of School 3

2 The One-Room Schoolhouse 9

3 The One-Room Teacher and the Community 21

4 Duties and Responsibilities 35

5 Reading Lessons 41

6 Recess 49

7 Lessons Learned 57

8 Lunch Hour 67

9 Music, Nature Study, Art, and the Radio 75

10 The Christmas Program 83

11 More Celebrations and the Last Day of School 93

12 What Happened to the One-Room Schools? 103

Appendixes

I Recess Games 113

II Visit a One-Room Schoolhouse 125

Glossary 135

Acknowledgments 139

Index 143

About the Author 146