"It was a great opportunity to reflect and honor what makes Idaho so incredible," said Butch Otter, governor of Idaho. "We had several dance performances, singers, and even a cowboy poet in the Lincoln Auditorium."
Here in Boundary County, the Museum put on a program for 4th graders from around the county. Fourth graders were selected as the Museum's guests for Idaho Day, as fourth grade is when the Idaho history curriculum is taught in our schools.
Here is the Museum's report on their Idaho Day activities:
Oh, What a Dig!
by Dottie Gray, Boundary County Museum
Plastic spoons, toothpicks, and paint brushes were transformed into tools needed by budding junior archaeologists, as fourth graders from Mt. Hall, Naples, and Valley View schools came to the Museum on Wednesday, March 4 to celebrate Idaho Day. 152 years ago, in 1863, on this date, President Abraham Lincoln signed the act that created the Territory of Idaho. The 2014 Idaho Legislature established March 4 as a day to commemorate this historic event.
In small groups, (with a cadre of Museum
volunteers as leaders who were having as much
fun as the kids!), the students constructed a
grid using measurement skills over their “dig
sites.” They labeled the axes to give common
language to each sextant of the site. They
imagined themselves as homesteaders to this new
territory and prepared to clear their land. But,
oh look! There is something sticking out of the
dirt and gravel. Their challenge was to discover
what artifacts might be waiting to be uncovered,
and to do so carefully so as not to damage the
treasures that await them. Each site contained at least one real artifact from the Museum’s collection: stone scrapers, stone axes, stone fish weights, and even some trade beads. They discovered other clues to plants and animals that may have been here at the time: huckleberries, morel mushrooms, rose hips, sweet grass, snail shells, bones, leather strips, feathers, and deer hair. The children easily identified the Kootenai Tribe as the first inhabitants of the land, and these artifacts would have been a part of their lives and culture.
Following the enthusiastic and successful dig, Curator Sue Kemmis, led the groups in a debriefing “show and share” discussion of what can be learned about people and places from the artifacts left behind. The children were eager to share what they had found and what they had learned. After a brief clean-up, each student was treated to an Idaho shaped cookie, before boarding their buses back to school. We thank the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho for providing funds to bus children to the museum for this and other programs.
The Museum appreciates the opportunity to work with the schools, teachers, and students. In April a “trunk
story” will go out to all
district 4th grades, as well as to the private
schools in the county. And in May students will
board those buses once again for the annual tour
of the Boundary County Museum.