Colonial Life

Colonial Life

Step back more than three hundred years to when life was much different. Imagine a time before the United States was a country. It is a period known as the Colonial Times. It is a cold morning. You wake up before the sun rises. You have much work to do. Only some lucky children get to go to school. Most kids spend their days working beside their parents.

You begin the day by washing up in the washbasin and getting dressed. The water isn't hot unless your mother or father has already boiled some. Then you light a lantern and walk outside to gather wood from the woodpile. This is your first chore of the day.

After you put the wood in the fireplace, a fire is lit to warm the house. Your mother uses the fire to cook breakfast. You soon sit down to a big breakfast. You need it because you have a day of hard work ahead of you.

If you are a girl, you probably have to help your mother cook, gather eggs from the chickens, or wash the laundry- by hand! You might also have to churn the butter. That means that you sit over a large wooden bucket full of cream. You grab a long, funny-shaped stick and gently move it up and down in the bucket. This churns the cream until it slowly turns to butter. The butter tastes good, but it takes many hours to make. Once you make it, you are not able to keep it for long. You see, there are no refrigerators in colonial days. You have to chill things in a stream- if you live near one.

If you are a boy, you might have to work on the farm. You plant seeds and till soil with a plow pulled by oxen. You might repair the barn, milk the cows, or chop down trees for wood. Some days, you might help to build a new neighbor's house or even work in the local mill. You have to work many hours both in the cold of winter and in the heat of summer. There is no air conditioning in the summer. In the winter, you have only a fireplace to keep warm.