By STEPHANIE BUNKER
Moapa Valley Progress
Kid’s Day at Lost City Museum is a fabulous event to bring the community and the museum staff together. The Museum invited kid’s from the community to join them for a few hours for crafts and learning on Saturday. Jesse Davie a museum attendant said, “Kid’s Day is an outreach to the community, kids get to see the museum and be educated.”
The 23 kids who attedended were divided up into 3 groups to rotate around different stations. Due to a chilly and windy day the stations got moved indoors within the museum for their crafts. Fortunately there wasn’t as big of a showing as years before, otherwise it would have been difficult to fit all the kids inside, mentioned Davie. Despite the inclement weather, the kids had fun and made their crafts.
Rattlesnakes were the topic of one station. While the kids crafted their own version of a rattlesnake they listened to facts about the slithery creatures. They learned that the largest rattlesnake recorded was 8 feet long, which is as long as the table they were sitting at. The kids’ snakes were made out of pipe cleaners connected to plastic test tubes filled with corn kernels and the heads were made out of paper.
Another craft they were making were Kachina dolls. Davie explained that to the ancient Hopi people, Kachina dolls were a religious symbol of their spirits. Davie explained that the Navajo tribe was related to the Hopi people. The Kachina dolls were made of round wooden balls connected together, then decorated with felt and feathers.
The trademark for the Lost City Museum is their pueblos, so the kids got to make pueblos themselves. The pueblos were made out of square cardboard boxes that the kids got to paint, cut out windows, and glue a ladder to them as well. After completing the pueblo the kids went out and explored the pueblos there at the museum.
“The kids get to see the pueblos and think about the people that were here before,” said Davie.
This was Whitney Waite’s first year at Kid’s Day; she said she was having a great time.
“We get to learn new things and see how they used to live in the pueblos,” she said.
Waite had fun making her own pueblo, especially painting her ladder blue.
Chyler Cooper had come to Kid’s Day once before. She had so much fun that she wanted to come back again!
Aaron McKee brought her 6 year old daughter Madison to Kid’s day. She said, “This gives our kids something different to do, they like the crafts and it keeps them busy.”
Before the kid’s go home they get to take what’s called a ‘grab bag’ with them consisting of a notebook and pencils along with all the other fun crafts they created.
