Ms. Kreul’s Class Blog

By Hannah

Hello, Welcome to the Wade House in Greenbush Wisconsin. My name is Elizabeth White. I came here a few years ago with my family. My daughters name is Mary White and my husbands name is Robert E. White. We came here to the Wade House from New York in our carriage. We had a Cut Under Basket Pea. We barely all fit. It’s was a very tiny carriage. I work here as a cook and my husband works in the Blacksmith shop. For every night we stay here at the Wade House, we have to pay 50¢ for each of us to stay in a room. We have to pay 25¢ for meals.

The mattresses we sleep on are made out of straw. Mary and I share a room together to save money. Mary sleeps on a mattress on the floor. Something else I do besides cook is make candles. Mary helps me make them. The candles we make are made of cow fat. We make them ourselves because there to expensive to by at stores. The Wade House has 27 rooms and 12 of them are for the Wade family. Every once in a while there will be a dance in the Ballrooe a dance called Cotilion. When I’m not working I will go to the Parlor and read or go to the Blacksmith Shop to see my husband. (The Parlor is for women only).

The Wade House doesn’t have bathrooms so under our beds we have pots called chamber pots. I’m glad I’m not the maid here at the Wade House! The Wade House is on a street they called farmers highway. They called it that because farmers would come on the road and stay at the Wade House. In the Wade House there is a Barroom. Robert would go in the Barroom with other men. The Barroom is for men only like the Parlor is for women.

4K is currently working on the last round of Literature Circles for the year. The genre is mysteries, and students are reading and discussing these wonderful books – The Mystery of the Phantom Ship by Laura E. Williams, The Mystery at Miss Abigail’s by Lois Gladys Leppard, Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish, and The Mystery of the Haunted Playhouse by Laura E. Williams.

Students worked together to set up a reading schedule for the number of pages to read each day, depending on the number of days available. There are always 2-3 additional days added to the schedule to write book reviews for publication online.

Fourth graders are assessed on their participation in Lit Circle discussion groups, their written responses to daily reading assignments (similar to homework reading logs), and an independently written book review.

By Sam

Hi, welcome to the Wade House, I’m Mr. Wade I’ll give you a tour of the house. I did rebuild the house, And now it has twenty seven rooms.  For the bar room it would cost 25¢ for a meal. Only men could go in the bar room. It would cost 6 ¢  for a lemonade  and 3¢ for a whiskey. The only time a woman would go in there was to clean. The ladies had to sou there own dresses. We didn’t have any electricity to work with.

We all had straw beds. It would cost 50¢ to sleep there. We usually had tools under our beds, We had a bathroom in side or out side. The bathroom out side was a shed and you sit on a hole. And the bathroom in side, there is a pot under every bed, and a hole is in the bed. It wasn’t comfortable. Well the saw mill is very cool, the blade moves up and down, but not side to side. And the black smith is always working, hes working with iron, horses, oxen, so you know the black smith is busy. And thats the end of the tour.

By CR

The Wade House is located is Greenbush, Wisconsin. John Walker became a blacksmith. A blacksmith makes things out of iron like horseshoes. To do so the blacksmith would make a fire. Then put the iron bar in the fire for a little while. Then take it out and hammer it to the shape they want. After that they let it cool in water.

I came to the Wade House as an immigrate from Germany. My family is very poor. So we came to America. As I grew older I became a blacksmith. If my father ever needed  anything he would say “ John can you get me a couple of Oxen shoes?” Once in awhile I would burn myself,boy that hurt.

My brother Jake he helps my father at the sawmill. I get 23¢ a day 30¢ if I’m lucky. My brother gets 18¢. My Mother helps Mrs. Wade in the kitchen. My father works in the sawmill. My brother and   I     sleep in the same room. My mother and father sleep in the rooms across from us. Our lives can be hard at times but we will have to keep our heads high until things change.

By Jacob

“HI”, My name is Jacob. I just got back from the Wade House in Greenbush, Wisconsin a week ago. a week ago. When the trip first started, I decided to take along my wife, my son, and my brother Henry. This was my experience that I had at the Wade House.

When I first arrived at the Wade House, I had to pay ¢25 to buy a small bed on the third floor of the house. My family couldn’t afford to buy a nice room because I was poor. I had to wash my hands with a pitcher because the Wade House had no sinks to wash your hands. My floor had lots of small bedrooms just like mine.

I liked to hang out with my brother in the Barroom. We got to have a nice drink and relax. But I still missed my wife and son because they weren’t aloud in the Barroom. Instead, they were aloud in a place called the parlor.

In the Dining room, I liked to eat some pork and rhubarb pie. It was the perfect place to talk and have a laugh. When I left the Wade House, I missed the Dining room the most.

I liked to go to the blacksmith shot to see what my friend John the Blacksmith was doing. John the Blacksmith was very nice. I watched him put a piece of iron in fire, and then twisted it into a horseshoe. Watching John the Blacksmith was very cool.

In the kitchen, I saw lots of pots and pans. I even saw a water well. To cook food, we had to use a fireplace.

I thought that the sawmill was important because all of the wood in the wade House was made in a sawmill. I hope that you can go to the Wade House so you could have fun.

By Deana

Hello partner, I am Mr. Wade. I have ten pleasing children. I am happy to say the Wade house was built in 1850.

You should know before the Wade house was built there was a Half way house. My family and  I there before I built the Wade house, (our new house.) The Wade house isn’t only our house. Many people rent rooms for 50¢  a night. Some stay for one or two nights,but others they sometimes stay for a couple of weeks. The barroom is for adult men only, no wives and no kids. The men don’t just have there own room. Woman and kids go to the parlor. I am sure the parlor isn’t as loud as the barroom, but it is still an enjoyable room. The dinning room is open to all people for a nice meal. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Each meal cost 25¢, there are three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and diner.

Beside the beauty of the house, the jobs are great. One of my favorite jobs is the blacksmith. It’s been awhile since I have seen my friend, Jim the Blacksmith. Jim works a lot with metal and iron. He fixes things with iron and makes things with metal. My wife’s favorite job is the cook, Lucy the cook. She loves to help with cooking. Sometimes she goes down and help in her spare time. A lot of people come to the Wade house so there is a lot of cooking to be done. Mary the Maid is super nice, but also has the worst job in the house. Mary cleans the chamber pots. I feel bad for Mary she is such a good friend.

4K has begun a short unit on Wisconsin in social studies. Among other activities, teams of students will be reading about Wisconsin’s history, geography, government, and people, then presenting WI facts to classmates using posters, songs, maps, or other formats of their choosing. In other words, they are the teachers for this unit!

By PM

Hello, my name is Joseph and I am the Blacksmith at Wade House. I’ve worked here for many years after leaving my home in Indiana.

One morning in May, I woke to the sound of…gunshots!  I knew right away that I should leave right away with my family. It seemed that my wife heard the noise and was already packing her bag and getting ready to leave home. Ten minutes later, my whole family was crammed in the back of our rickety,  old wagon, and I was hitching up our team of horses. A week later, we rode into Greenbush, Wisconsin. There I met Mr. Wade, and he invited me to the Wade House. When the Wades learned of my mettle working skills, they hired me as the new blacksmith. I the had my dream job!

I think this job is as good as it gets. The clang of the hammers and the roar of the forge. There are all sorts of things that I make in the forge, for example, horse shoes, Oxen shoes and wagon wheels. If you’re wondering what a forge is, it’s a stove that burns coal instead of wood that has a large bicycle pump on one side, Generally speaking.

Sometimes I go down to the sawmill to go see my friend Tom. He runs the sawmill and makes wooden boards  out of trees. In the mill, there is a huge saw powered by the water pressure pushing down on a turbine that operates the saw. It impresses me even today!

Now to the house itself. You can see that we are in the barroom. Only men were allowed in the barroom, so the room next door is the parlor. It is meant for women, but children can go there too. If you to go upstairs, you would see a room were a wounded soldier stayed during the Civil War. In the third floor, there is a ballroom with small rooms on the side. Man, those dances must keep you up all night!

I guess this is all I can tell you about the Wade House and Greenbush and it’s history. Remember, even though times change, the past is still important.

Students have completed their Wade House essays, based on their field trip to Wade House in Greenbush on May 11. They used the field trip packet work, the notes taken on the field trip, and their experiences at Wade House to take on the role of a person who lived at, worked at, or visited Wade House in the 1860s.

Students were assessed on their essay in several language arts categories: writing process (packet work, notes, graphic organizer, and illustration), content (accurate information from the time and place), organization (sentences, paragraphs, and essay), conventions (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage), illustration (from the Carriage Museum), and presentation (overview of the person’s life).

By VK

Good morning, my name is Vlada, I am the blacksmith here at Wade House. Coming here wasn’t easy! I rode on horse to Wade House with my family from Sheboygan, Wisconsin because of the war. Being a blacksmith is an important job here because the town relies on me to make horseshoes, wheels, and other things. Before, people made just plain, old, wooden wheels. But that didn’t work so I put iron over the wheels so nothing happens to them. The owner of the sawmill will make the wheels, and give them to me to finish them off.

Let’s take a look at the Wade House. In the barroom, men drink whiskey which is 3cents and lemonade, which is 6 cents. Only men are allowed in this room! You would usually see a spit pit, a bar, tables and chairs, and a lot of cards. The men would sit, talk, and play card games. Only women and children are allowed in the parlor. You would read a book, or just relax waiting for the men. Around you, there would be books, tables, chairs, and paintings!

Wow! Isn’t the dining room huge? After a long day at work, the men would come home here just in time for supper! You would pay 25 cents per meal in just one night. While you were having your meal, you would see many doors, lift out walls, long tables, chairs, paintings, maybe china in glass, and maybe a bell hanging on the wall. The women would cook a variety of foods, from Rhubarb pie, to mashed potatoes and other delicious foods! I can just imagine the aroma of this room

The 2nd floor is all about the soldiers, and is filled with uniforms and other artifacts. All of it is about the tragic moments of the Civil War. Let’s go ahead to the merry 3rd floor! We are in the ballroom, to the sides are the extremely small bedrooms. That is called the sleeping area. In the ballroom there could be gatherings, or just dances! On the small tables of the bedrooms, there are water pitchers where you wash your face, and underneath there are chamber pots (bathrooms).

Thank you for visiting Wade House! I hope you enjoyed your visit.

4K has been composing poetry using the poetry templates on the wonderful web site ETTC’s Instant Poetry Forms.

After experimenting with the many different forms, students chose one to complete on the online form. Next they copied and pasted the poems into Open Office Writer documents. Then they saved the documents to the server and printed copies to use to practice for podcasting.

After several days of practice, students recorded their podcasts using Audacity on the teacher’s iBook. The teacher saved the .aup files as .mp3 files and added the podcasts to the class blog.

Elle’s poem is titled “Excellent Birthday”

Hannah’s poem is titled “Me and My Shadow”

Tommy’s poem is titled “I Am”

Dylan’s poem is titled “Dylan’s Ice Cream Store”

Annie’s poem is titled “Now I Am a Kid”

They hope you enjoy listening to their poetry!

Poetry Podcast #4 May 2009

4K has been composing poetry using the poetry templates on the wonderful web site ETTC’s Instant Poetry Forms.

After experimenting with the many different forms, students chose one to complete on the online form. Next they copied and pasted the poems into Open Office Writer documents. Then they saved the documents to the server and printed copies to use to practice for podcasting.

After several days of practice, students recorded their podcasts using Audacity on the teacher’s iBook. The teacher saved the .aup files as .mp3 files and added the podcasts to the class blog.

De’Ana’s poem is titled “I Can’t Write My Own Poem”

Jacob’s poem is titled “Fruits and Veggies”

Curtis’ poem is titled “My Many Names”

Evangeline’s poem is titled “Worry Poem”

Sam’s poem is titled “I Wish”

They hope you enjoy listening to their poetry!

Poetry Podcast #3 May 2009

Hello, my name is Fiona and this is my daughter. Welcome to Wade House. I’m the cook here. We’ve been living for about 3 years now. So, enough with that let me tell you what it’s like to live here at Wade House.

When we first came to Wade House we chose a bedroom. Are bedroom was right next to the kitchen so I could get up and cook for everyone. Plus, the beds are made of straw so it hard to get a goodnight sleep. The beds and bedroom is small, but I guess we just have to live with it

the dinning area is vast, but it can sit up to forty people! It also looks bigger when people are in it. My daughter  Elle is 12 and likes making china. She made china for Mr. and  Mrs. Wade. They liked it so much they decided to keep it and put it in a china case.

The parlor is for women only. I go there when ever I have time off, but I rarely have time off because I have to cook for everyone. The parlor is used for waiting, reading, and writing. I think the maid has the hardest job of all because she has to clean chamber pots every day. The maid also has to clean the barroom and all the mens messes. Oh, well my pen is starting to run out of ink. Thats all for today. I hope that you come visit Wade House. Fairwell.

4K has been composing poetry using the poetry templates on the wonderful web site ETTC’s Instant Poetry Forms.

After experimenting with the many different forms, students chose one to complete on the online form. Next they copied and pasted the poems into Open Office Writer documents. Then they saved the documents to the server and printed copies to use to practice for podcasting.

After several days of practice, students recorded their podcasts using Audacity on the teacher’s iBook. The teacher saved the .aup files as .mp3 files and added the podcasts to the class blog.

Andrew’s poem is titled “Who Am I?”

Lizzie’s poem is titled “I Am a Squirrel”

Xavier’s poem is titled “Once Upon a Time I Caught a Little Rhyme”

Vlada’s poem is titled “Hello Spring”

Joseph’s poem is titled “I Am a Lizard”

They hope you enjoy listening to their poetry!

Poetry Podcast #2 May 2009

By XJ

Good day,I’m the Blacksmith of the wade house. I grew up here as a child. I moved here from Sheboygan with my mom as a baby. Over the years I got know Mr. Wade very well,we are great friends now. I,ll give you the tour of the wade house now.

On the first floor there is the barroom and the parlor. In the barroom it’s men only, they drink, play cards, gamble, and just relax. Whiskey is   3¢ lemonade 6¢  In the parlor where it’s woman only, they read, write, relax, or even might play soothing piece on the piano.

On the second floor were it’s for more important people like someone in the army. The third floor with the huge ballroom where guest would dance all day and all night.

4K has been composing poetry using the poetry templates on the wonderful web site ETTC’s Instant Poetry Forms.

After experimenting with the many different forms, students chose one to complete on the online form. Next they copied and pasted the poems into Open Office Writer documents. Then they saved the documents to the server and printed copies to use to practice for podcasting.

After several days of practice, students recorded their podcasts using Audacity on the teacher’s iBook. The teacher saved the .aup files to .mp3 files and added the podcasts to the class blog.

Hailey’s poem is titled “My Wishes and My Fears”

Josh’s poem is titled “Yes, That’s Me”

Bennett’s poem is titled “Birthday”

AlisonH’s poem is titled “I Can’t Write a Poem”

Ethan’s poem is titled “I Came Across a Monkey”

They hope you enjoy listening to their poetry!

Poetry Podcast #1 May 2009

by EG

Hi, I’m John, I work at a blacksmith shop. I came from England  to Wisconsin. I have one wife thats it and the trip was long to me. Once we came a pond the Wade house  I got a job as a blacksmith. It was successful my wife found friends I also found friends too!

I use iron to make stuff. I make horseshoes  and oxen shoes and other stuff. People who live or work at the Wade house think I’m helpful. I see a lot of friends at my shop. I wonder why I never see my wife?

When i  live at the Wade house I get paid 25 cents or more because I’m the only blacksmith around. I can get paid enough to get abed and a meal but one more thing Mrs.Wade is so nice he gives use a second mattress and I also live on the third floor I let my wife sleep on the bed and I just sleep on the floor with the mattress. I’m having a good life,I also like being a blacksmith too!

The hard thing about being a blacksmith is that I don’t get that much days off besides   Sunday. On Sunday I spend most of my time with my wife than I go to the barroom. The barroom the barroom is strictly for men only!. The barroom has two names the taproom and the saloon. But than I need to go back to work. Whoops it looks like I’m running out of ink so I got to go, hope I see you here at the
wade house good bye for now!

By AG

Hello! I’m Andrew Wade, and I live here with my parents and sister at the Wade House. I’m 20 years old, and John Warner and I are woodcutters. We cut a cord of wood each day. Come on, and let me show you around a bit. These are my favorites.

One of our favorite places to go in our free time is the barroom. No women are allowed in here. You see that over there? That’s a wood burning stove. That’s used in the winter to keep us nice and toasty! Men, if you ever want to stop by, here are our selection of beverages along with their prices. Well, there’s whiskey for 3 cents or lemonade for 6 cents. Oh, and the women do get to come in here once, but that’s only to clean up for 35 cents a night. Let’s move along so I can show you the Horsemen’s Highway, Plank Road.

Here it is, Plank Road. I’m guessing you have two questions. Why would they build a road out of planks? And why would they call it plank road if the road is covered gravel? I will answer both of those questions. When Greenbush first became a city, many horsemen rode across the trail that was soon to be known as Plank Road. The trail was bumpy and uncomfortable for the horsemen, and prickly and painful for the horses! So they built the Plank Road which made an easier ride for the horsemen but still painful for the horses. So they added gravel to help everyone. Now let’s go back inside and see where the women went, the parlor.

I find this room boring. But women don’t! They come in here to relax, wait for the men, or do other activities. You will find the majority of people reading, but it is very seldom to see someone playing that piano over there because hardly anyone knows how to play! But overall, it’s a pretty nice room. I hope you enjoyed this little run through of the Wade House because I got some wood to chop! Bye!

By Bennett

Hello I am Joe Frankie. I  am going to tell you all about what  I do at Wade House and out of Wade House. I work at the sawmill. At the sawmill you have to measure the length and how long it is because then if the measurements are not correct the customer will be mad. If you don’t focus you could get hurt cutting wood.  If you don’t get to work on time you will lose money.

If you do focus   it is a really fun job. Also you have to  work really hard. The reason I like this job is because of how fascinating it is and how there is a lot of history in my job. Me and and Mr. Wade are like brothers because  of how  and how he is so proud of me.

If you are working at Wade House you want to be on time to work  so you get paid more. Also you get more time to do work that is due at the end of that day. I like working at Wade House because of how important my job is and also I like to work here because of how Mr. Wade is a  really nice manager.

I hope you come to visit Wade House it is a very nice place to learn about what our lives were like back then. Also you can  come by the sawmill and I can teach you a thing or two about the history of the sawmill and most importantly about Wade House. Have a nice day and I will see you next time. Bye.