Without the use of a time machine, Teri Johnson can take her Lone Tree School students back to the 1800s through chalk, slates and McGuffey Readers.

"We can't go back in time and see what it was exactly like, but by doing living history like Lone Tree we can come close to showing them what it really was like," Johnson said Wednesday as she stood in the one-room schoolhouse built in 1893. "If we don't get younger kids interested in history and enjoying it, it will be lost.


Once you've lost your history, you can't get it back."

Johnson, with the help of Sharon Danhauer, both members of the Loveland

Historical Society, greeted visitors to Lone Tree during the third annual ice cream social to show off the school in North Lake Park and provide a sampler of the one-week summer school sessions.

The Loveland Museum/Gallery, host of the social, will offer the sessions beginning in June to students entering the second through ninth grades.

The social, which coordinated with Historic Preservation Month in May, featured old-fashioned games, horse-drawn wagon rides and school tours.

Charlotte Dougherty, 12, signed up for her second session of old-time school.

"It was really fun because there were a bunch of activities," the Loveland girl said. "We got to kind of be what it was back then."

During each session, Johnson simulates the typical school day and activities of the late 19th century, while including the history and folkways of the High Plains of Northern Colorado. She teaches a curriculum featuring the three Rs, demonstrating what it was like with grades 1-8 learning together.

"They have an appreciation of what it was like to go to school 100 years ago, what the learning was like, what the discipline was like, what the routine was like," said Johnson, who has been teaching the sessions since 1984.

Johnson engages her students in old-fashioned crafts, including making cornhusk dolls and braided rugs. She has them make ice cream and churn butter. And for recess, she involves them in old-time games.

Thirteen-year-old Emily Leidig, who attended two sessions, still has her cornhusk dolls and recalls making and writing each day in her journal, or diary.

"That's how they made diaries back then out of old wallpaper," Emily said.

As for the school day, "It was very disciplined, and you stood up when you spoke," she said.

 Levi Daly, 2, takes a bite of his ice cream as he sits in front of the Lone Tree School  at North Lake Park during an ice cream social held Wednesday by
Levi Daly, 2, takes a bite of his ice cream as he sits in front of the Lone Tree School at North Lake Park during an ice cream social held Wednesday by the Loveland Museum/Gallery in Loveland. ( Jenny Sparks )

Ten-year-old Destiny Miller tried out the chalkboard during the social.

"I think it's cool. You can erase it and hold the chalk," she said. "It feels good, because it's so smooth."

Sisters Avery and Briar Crockett, 10 and 7 respectively, sampled the freshly churned butter.

"I like how it didn't taste like a store made it," Avery said.


Lone Tree School 2013 Summer Sessions

When: 9-11:30 a.m. for each session: Session 1, June 10-14; Session 2, July 15-19; Session 3, July 29-Aug. 2.

Where: North Lake Park. 

