Page Farm & Home Museum Offers ‘Pathways to the Past’ Day Camp June 25-29
Contact: Patty Henner, 581-4100; George Manlove, 581-3756
ORONO — The University of Maine Page Farm and Home Museum is offering its first
“Pathways to the Past” day camp for kids June 25-29, providing a chance for area children ages 6-12 to learn about what it was like to grow up in rural Maine from the 1865 through 1940.
Children will spend mornings from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. learning about a very different era in Maine, pre-Industrial Revolution, when most tasks were done by hand. They will make cheese and ice cream from scratch with organic ingredients and other healthy snacks, says Patricia Henner, museum director.
Hands-on activities include creating folk art like decorative stenciling, learning about gardening and worm composting, having a “sugar on snow party” and seeing a blacksmithing demonstration.
“It’s a unique and fun way to introduce children to the past,” says Henner, who will lead the activities with Mary Bird, instructor in science and environmental education in UMaine’s College of Education and Human Development and chair of the museum’s programming committee.
Children also will learn about wool production — “From Sheep to Shawl” — through a visit to the university’s sheep pens at the university’s Witter Farm.
“This event focuses on what it was like for a child growing up in rural Maine during that earlier time period,” Henner says. The non-profit museum is dedicated to preserving artifacts, customs and traditions in Maine between 1865 and 1940.
A nominal $65 fee for the five-day camp covers the cost of materials for children’s activities.
The museum’s community outreach activities and programming are designed to educate the public — young people in particular — about early life in Maine. It is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends for individual visits, group tours, special hands-on programs and other interactive educational events.
More information about the Page Farm and Home Museum and “Pathways to the Past” day camp is available by calling (207) 581-4100.