Hunter Wilson/Daily NewsAustin Payne, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Lost River Elementary School, learns how a weaver’s loom works Monday from parent volunteer Robert Neidlinger at the school.

Some fifth-graders weaved and some quilted, some made candles and some shucked corn, some danced and others reenacted everyday life in Colonial Jamestown.

But all got a taste of early Colonial times Monday at Lost River Elementary School as fifth-grade teachers recreated the period in the school’s gym. The annual event is the culmination of the Colonial unit, said Sonya Simpson, a fifth-grade teacher at Lost River Elementary.

“This gives them a hands-on experience of what it was like in those days,” she said. “Wearing the clothes and looking the part makes the activity more real for them. It makes them feel a part of the activity.”

The four fifth-grade homerooms traveled to different stations throughout the gym that were accented by posterboards with tidbits of information on the activity.

“I learned some of the things Colonial people did,” said Chanse Szatkiewicz, 11. “Things are easier now. I don’t think I could live back then.”

With girls in bonnets and skirts and boys with their pant legs rolled up like makeshift britches, the students engaged in all things Colonial, such as a country dance called the Virginia Reel.

“It showed what they did at ceremonies and events. I thought that was interesting,” said Asia Woodard, 10. “This was a cool way to learn more about Colonial days.”

Students in lines of two dipped string into candle wax, making candles. Some students took needle and thread to quilts in one area of the gym, while others watched an antique machine shuck corn, leaving nothing but the cob.

Once the kernels of corn were in the bin, the students played a game by taking corn from one bin to another.

“It’s cool,” said Ali Burnam, 10. “I didn’t know they had a machine that shreds corn. I thought they did that with their hands.”

Students weaving also took note of an actual antique weaving machine brought in by Robert Neidlinger, whose daughter is a sixth-grader at the elementary school.

Neidlinger, who was in full Colonial dress of a master craftsman, said he learned a “great deal” about the 18th century.

“Everything from the clothes to the materials, this brings home the lesson,” he said.

Each year, Simpson said they evaluate what worked and what didn’t in preparation for the following year’s event.

“It comes together well,” she said.

Simpson said the event garnered much community support, such as tube socks – makeshift stockings for the boys – and apple sauce donated from Wal-Mart and teachers’ families and friends coming to help. In addition to teachers, Warren County residents Pam Jarbo and Carol Jarbo portrayed indentured servants from Ireland.

The two told of the Colonial days from an indentured servant’s point of view.

“That was pretty cool they came to talk to us about this,” said Chanse Szatkiewicz, 11. “I kinda knew some of it, but I learned something new today.”