As the weather has gotten more and more summer like, our son has been wanting to spend more and more time out of doors. The only problem is that we live on a fairly busy street with practically no yard. So in order to give our son a good amount of safe outdoor time and a someone his own age to play with, I planned a playdate with some of our friends. For our playdate we were heading to a turn of the century era farm and town set up to be as realistic and functional as possible in the twenty first century. We met our friends, a mom and her two daughters, at the visitor’s center and together we crossed the threshold back in time to eighteen seventy five. Our first stop on the tour was a middle class home. The kids seemed to really enjoy walking around the house and seeing all the different rooms (I am not sure if they realized that it was not like their homes). There was a young woman at the house dressed in eighteen seventy five attire and she showed the kids what kinds of toys the children would have played with back then. The kiddos particularly enjoyed the rag doll and the spinning top! Our next stop was the old church. The kids had a blast pretending to be in church and telling us mommy’s to sit and stand and sing. Then we headed out to the farm to see all the animals. There were horses, cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, and even a turkey. What the kids enjoyed most of all was running in the wide open space of the farm yard. When they seemed a little tired of chasing ducks, they took a tour of the old farm house. Then we headed back to the town to have picnic lunch before checking out the old one room school house. Once in the school house the “teacher” had the kids sit down in the desks that were made for the youngest students and she gave them each a slate and a slate pencil to draw with. After the kids were done drawing, we checked out the turn of the century mansion and barn. It was clear that the kids were getting tired so we headed back to the year two thousand and twelve and took naps!
