School Tours

The students in the Centerville City School System study the history of their community in the third grade.

The third grade teachers talk about the founders of Centerville and Washington Township in the classroom.  The Society offers a tour of the Walton House Museum to all 6 elementary schools where the students learn what it was like to be a kid long ago.  The volunteers guide them through local history as well as the history of the Walton House.

The classes are divided into 3 groups and rotate between two rooms in the Walton house and the chicken house in the backyard.

These third graders enter the front door and gather in the original 1838 portion of the Walton House.  They will learn about the original stone house and how the people of early times lived.

 
The second group of 3rd graders come in the back door and gather in the back room of the Walton House.  It is set up as a kitchen of the 1930s.  The students learn about William and Mary Walton and about their life in the house.  They also learn about the life style of that era.

The third group gathers in the chicken house located in the backyard of the Walton House and learns about our farming heritage.  They learn what chores kids their age would have on the farm, such as gathering eggs.  They learn that the farmers and their families were self-sufficient, and they learn what roles the animals played on the farm.  This young man is trying on a bridal that a horse would wear to get a sense of the size of the horse's head.

Click here to learn how the chicken house arrived in the Walton House backyard.