Summer Time Travelers meets goals: learning and fun

The Summer Time Travelers kids programs introduced at the museum in June, July, and August 2009 were a great success. At each program, kids ages 5-12 and families were invited to take a trip to the past and experience life in years gone by. A unique theme tied together activities throughout the museum, providing kids with a hands-on, interactive and fun tour through time. Advance registration was required but the programs were free of charge to all participants.

The Time Travelers theme on June 24 was Music. We discovered the importance of drumming to the Potawatomi, and we explored an array of historic instruments from the NBHS collection. The Citadel Dancers performed jazz and tap routines and we learned about and listened to famous musicians like Louis Armstrong and Guy Lombardo who played at Paw Paw Lake in the resort era. After looking at a gramophone, record player, 8-track, cassette, and CD, kids made a candy i-Pod to remind them of the huge leaps in technology that have shaped music today. We also practiced the Star Spangled Banner and everyone went home with a small American flag, just in time for the 4th of July.



On July 15 the Time Travelers theme was Travel. Boat Bingo was a fun way to look at sailboats, steamers, shipwrecks, lighthouses, and other water travel images from our local history. NBHS photographs of the interurban, the railroad, and artifacts like sleighs, carriages, and cars helped us cover the many modes of travel from the past. Working model trains were on loan from J&W Model Trains in Coloma and from Sally Williams. Kids made a model birch bark canoe and a model airplane to take home. Just after we saw a slideshow of the major milestones in U.S. space travel, a model rocket was launched courtesy of Bob’s Hobby & Collector’s Shop in Watervliet.

Food was the theme for August 12, when our Time Travelers played many games to explore the history of cooking and eating. Items from the NBHS collection that we enjoyed learning from included the ancient stone mortar and pestle, butter churns, a bee smoker, a wooden icebox, and a porcelain chamber pot. Many food samples were tried throughout the program, like fresh basil, mint tea, fresh churned butter, orange cake, pickled vegetables, salt pork, smoked whitefish, and beef jerky. The kids also received a coloring cookbook with historic recipes to take home.



Learning and fun were the two major goals of Summer Time Travelers, aiming to inspire a lifelong interest in history and in historical museums. The North Berrien Historical Museum was able to offer these exciting programs for free because of the generous contributions of local business owners and volunteers, including Mike Pirri, Elaine Gierada, Caroline Elsner, Bob Taylor, John Piehl, Kathleen Walter, Sherry Polashak, Marc Hettig, Marie Sineni, Alice Mow, Maureen Saltzman, Sally Williams, Scott Young, and Shirley Boone. With many ideas in mind for the future, we hope to continue Summer Time Travelers as an annual tradition of learning and fun at the museum.