*Bring snack food and water.
*Plan not to travel much after dark.
*Bring a camera. Encourage children to take pictures and make up stories about the things they see along the route.
Tips for traveling with children:
*Call sites before you start to make sure they are child friendly and/or have special activities for children.
*Bring old crayons (they might melt in the car)
- a pad of newsprint or other paper (take stone rubbings, create pictures of what they see),
- old catalogs (good for pressing flowers and leaves one finds in the woods)
- books on the fossils, trees and plants, and birds, butterflies etc, one might find along the way.
- Create a scavenger hunt for things around the sites you will visit and have the children take pictures to prove they saw each thing listed. These pictures can be made into a scrapbook of their trip!
William Henry Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
Canals
*Alternate historic sites and museums with parks and physical activity
*Look for activities on children's webpages from:
- Department of Natural Resources,
- the Ohio History Teachers,
- SafePassageOhio,
- the Ohio Department of Transportation ,
- the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
- RiverWorks Discovery
-
The Butler County Soil & Water District's Education
Specialist has created programs for children's groups. See http://www.butlerswcd.org/
Education/Programs.html for the list of programs and contact information.
These books can help children understand the world around them.
A Parents Guide to Nature Play by Ken Finch
I Love Dirt: 52 activities to help you and your kids discover the wonders of nature by Jennifer Ward
Natural History of the Cincinnati Region by Stan Hedeen. Available at the Cincinnati Nature Center and Cincinnati Museum Center gift shops.
Discovering Nature with Young Children by Ingrid Chalufour and Karen Worth
When you return home:
- Make a scrapbook of your adventures and write stories about what you saw with the comments the children made about places and things you saw along the byway. What would life have been like without electricity and running water? What games would children play in the 1800's?
- Look at the leaves and plants you collected. Help you children identify them. Many of these plants were used by early settlers as food or medicine, to make perfumes or season food. What were your leaves and plants used for?
- Make a model of a covered bridge. Let your child experiment with different construction materials and techniques. What shapes are strong enough to span a distance? What shapes work best to hold up a roof?
