Last month my son and I attended the first Kids History Detective's Club for the 2014-2015 school year. This class is held the FIRST THURSDAY of every month at the Steele County History Museum. They took the kids back in time to learn about the railroad and the general store. It was an awesome program (did I mention FREE!) where there were 2 volunteers dressed and acted in character to teach the kids about how the train station and railroad, as well as the general store were used in a different period in history.
Each month there is a different topic that you can find out about on their website or on their Facebook page. We attended the morning preschool class, but they also have an evening school-age class as well.
Please scroll through these pictures to get an idea of the fun that the kids had while learning over the course of the 1 hour glass.
My son and I have been able to attend a few before, but because he had preschool last year on Tuesday and Thursday morning, we were unable to go. Some of the things we learned about was "History of Owatonna", "Old Fashioned Games", "Old West Trail" and "How Yarn is Made".
They were able to use their imaginations and go on a ride back in time as they left the country and journeyed 10 miles north to general store in town. They boarded the train with a ticket they had punched (and got to take home too) and started their journey to barter eggs for vegetables at the county store and buy penny candy (the "station master" gave them pennies to buy some penny candy at the end)
Here you can see a picture of the station master secretly giving the kids pennies to go to the general store with. It made me giggle they were buying "penny candy" as it was this ancient thing because when I was a kid (ok, guess that is making me old) there was a bar at the end of the road (yes, I said bar, it was Wisconsin, things are different there!) and they sold penny candy. I was always thrilled when I had a dollar and was old enough to walk down there by myself to by the candy. 100 pieces!
Here they are buying their penny candy at the end of the class. It was easy to tell that all the kids had a wonderful time. The volunteers who were acting did such a great job engaging the kids and helping them learn about history.
This was the first of this year and during the first week of school, so I think that was why there was not as many kids as we had seen at others we attended. I hope we have a lot more friends the next time.
I had typed this post the day we attended and they told us our next class was going to be about Pumpkins. Check out the SCHS website to find out more details. They have these classes the FIRST THURSDAY of every month. At 9AM for preschoolers and at 6:30PM for school-age children.
The NEXT ONE is next week on OCTOBER 2, 2014. Mark your calendar!
That is so neat. I really wish we had something like that here. My boys would love seeing all that.
ReplyDeletethat's pretty cool. I wish we had something like that here.
ReplyDeleteThat is great! I want to search in my area, my son would love it!
ReplyDeleteMan, that looks like fun. I wonder if we could start something like that in our community.
ReplyDelete