SOVEREIGN Hill Excursion

On Wednesday the 24th of May, Yan Yean Learning community went to Sovereign Hill. We rode the bus to get there and arrived around 10:30am. The bus ride was long but felt short talking to my friend beside me. When we arrived everyone was excited to learn and find gold. The teachers were talking to the reception to get us into our tour. Once that was done we walked into the eating cafeteria surrounded by luscious green grass and a playground next to a beautiful lake with geese very eager for food. - Eli

The Grade 5/6's had an education class in a classroom that looked like it was from the 1870’s. A woman was wearing old clothes and her dress had a frame under the dress. She taught us that some people came to Ballarat for gold and others to start their own businesses. Some of the people we learned about were, Freeman Cobb, who came here to start a coach business, John Allo, who was from China but came to Australia to start a new restaurant. Fun fact - you could book coach tickets at John Allo’s Restaurant for Freeman’s coaches! – Jason.S

My favourite part was when the Grade 4's went to the olden day school, because we learned how to do old handwriting. We learned that in the 1800's students couldn't talk at all or else they would get hit with a bamboo stick. Girls could not show any part of their body or else they would put a stick in the middle of your finger and squish their hands. - Sahel

I learned that kids had a hard life back then and they wore the most uncomfortable clothing. – Lucas

We went to go to a Black Smith who taught us a lot of things and it turns out being a Black Smith can be harder than it looks, and can be dangerous at some points too. - Chace

We went into a theatre to watch a man purify gold, real gold! The gold was worth 260,000 dollars. It turns out he had smelted that gold thousands of times! – Cristabella

We panned for gold. I found some too! - Paige

It was a wonderful experience and I learned new things. It was fun, interesting and educational. – Saman