I have been invited to teach a group of 6th graders the "History of Archery" at a Montessori School where my Wife teaches a lower Elementary class. I've done this one time before, but that was 10 years ago before all trad archery shown in movies recently. One of my shooting buddies will help me with showing the different types of bows and arrows we will bring. We'll show a time line starting with cave drawings found in Spain, the development of the Assyrian bow, battles like Agincourt, with the English longbow, up to now. My friends specialty is his knowledge of Native American bows. We'll also have a section of a tree trunk, a raw Osage Stave, some primitive tools, showing some basic steps in working a stave. We're looking forward to doing this due to the renewed

interest from the recent movies. It'll be fun, and outside of the occasional Boy Scout coming around to work on their Archery Merit Badge, the opportunity to share trad archery doesn't happen that much. It's all good.

Sounds Like FUN...Enjoy!

You have a great approach to what you are doing for sure. Some hands-on....real history, much better than anything you will find in a video. The movies Hunger Games, and Brave have impacted traditional archery more than anything in the past forty years. We need our young ones to actually know our history...so many adults don't. Good luck and keep us informed on how it went.

Sounds like you are on your way! Hands on demos of bows and such will make a real impact. Good luck and let us know how it went.

Thanks for the positive comments. We'll have up to 2 hours, including time for Q+A. In gathering the info, I found out that Ben Pearson was the first mass producer of archery equipment in 1938. I keep learning too.

Mike It sounds like those 6th graders are in for a real treat. I think your timeline's perfect, you've got all the major events and the physical evidence to go with it to bring it all to life.

Kudos to you sir

Wow! Sounds great! Jawge

Sounds great can I attend?

Sounds great can I attend?

Good gig.

Have fun with them.

Mike a little anecdote if I may ...

When I was a young child in school, we had a man come into class and spoke to us about about birds of prey. He brought a Buzzard and a Falcon with him. 50 years later, I sometimes meet up with old friends from my childhood and we ALL remember Mr Pemberton and his birds ...your kids will be no different they'll remember you for a long time

Shirt, I'm sure you would have a good time, I'm also sure you wouldn't like to pay the yearly fees for a Montessori School.

Phil, I was stuck out the woods with my Dad once when he was out there witha bunch of Ham Radio Operators. They were all hanging out in Airstream Trailers listening to other Ham Radio guys trying to connect with each other over their Transceivers. I was hot, bored and with no other kids to hang out with. I was always able to entertain myself, or read(at age 10), but it was hot, humid, and Illinois summer nasty. This one Ham in my Dads trailer saw my plight, talked to my Dad, then went to his car, popped the trunk and handed me a beautiful Browning Recurve and some custom made fiberglass arrows. He said try not to lose all of them, OK? Literally the first time I went stumping in the woods. It was a little scary, but I had a man's bow. Burned the crap out out of my fingers, no tab or glove, the bow was either 45 or 55# and I lost one of his 6 arrows. I'll never forget that guy and how he made the difference to that 10 year old kid that day. day.

Just got back from the Archery History gig at the Montessori School. These kids (4th thru 8th grade) were very into learning about Traditional Archery, thanks in large part to "The Hunger Games" with Kateniss Everdeen. The teacher had to leave while we were there. My friend and I didn't know this teacher wanted them to take notes, because "there will be a test". As we were packing up everything the teacher returned(he was doing his qualification for Montessori)even tho he has a Phd. And these kids were ready, they took notes, wrote down questions to ask us, very impressive. The oldest kid there owned the movie, Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, and was delighted to know about Howard Hill, who played Capt. Of the guards in the movie. As soon as my buddy (who helped me do this) emails me the pics, I'll post them. It could have gone over 2 hours easily, the level of interest was so high.

Nice.

Look forward to the pics.

One kid was fascinated with "Ye Sylvan Archer" and didn't want to give it back. You can see him in the front on the right. The girl in front of me made a bow out of a pencil and a broken rubber band, you can see her at full draw.

Looks of great enthusiasm...only one looks 'not interested'.

Where at in Illinois Mike? I know Illinois needs a ton of help in trying to survive the way and times we in Illinois live in today! You are doing a Good Thing Mike!

Nice looking group.

Good to hear all enjoyed your presentation.

This school is in Naperville, Illinois. When I was growing up, this town was a farming town, small and 1840's old. I lived 5 towns away, all of these towns are along the Burlington Train Line, Aurora to the city of Chicago. Now there are over 100,000 people in Naperville.

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