St. Mary's Museum

Yesterday we went to the St. Mary's Museum with a part of our homeschool group HOPE.

We learned about the toys that children used to play with.

We learned they played with marbles "Ring Taw", slappers (metal toys that made noise), corn husks dolls, wooden dogs, thumatrope, and zoetropes. Hoops and graces were another game. These games often had the side benefit of teaching important skills of hand-eye coordination, body-eye coordination and so forth. Skills important to survival. Tops was also a game they used to play.

They also had these really neat wind-up toys that were a big hit with the children.

The children all had a chance to make their own thumatrope.