Train up a child…

Children Like to Explore

Recently my husband and I went to Verona, MO, and tried to find the monument marking the location of the first Sunday School west of the Mississippi River and south of the Missouri river. We tried several dirt roads and stopped and talked to folks. It was fun! It reminded me of the many times as a child when I roamed the banks of Spring River and my friends and I explored haunted houses and a cave near the old remains of the Sunday School building.
The craving for adventure is surely inborn in every child. Children love to explore places and things. Fall is the perfect time of year for doing so. Unfortunately, now it is advisable for parents to be with the children for safety reasons. There are many things that parents and children can explore together. Old barns, caves, trails, dirt roads, homes of ancestors, and historical markers are just a few. Has your child even been in a cellar? There are many of those around sitting where houses once were. If this isn’t enough, a scavenger hunt can be arranged for fun as a game for a fall party.
Many natives of the Ozarks can give directions to caves. Of course, permission to go on property must be obtained, but many old-timers would love to have someone interested in their land and would probably have some stories to make the trip even more exciting. Be sure to take flashlights and dress in old clothes. Getting dirty is part of the fun! Our son took his aunt and a friend to a cave near Carr Lane where they had to crawl in a little hole that was the mouth of the cave. She will remember that a long time!
It is hard to drive very far without seeing signs alerting to historical markers. Instead of waiting to see them, why not go looking for them. See how many can be found in one day. Pack a picnic lunch and enjoy sitting outside and eating together in the quiet of nature. There are markers of the “Trail of Tears” in various places. A new one has gone up in Verona where some of the Cherokee tribe spent a winter on the Spring River before going on to Oklahoma. There is also a statue of a doughboy from WWI in the park in Verona.
One of the favorite pastimes of my sisters and me as children was to explore “haunted houses”. These were just empty houses that we imagined to be haunted. Old houses and barns can be unsafe, so parents need to definitely be with the children to do this activity. It is fun to see how the houses and barns were designed and the purposes of each part. In one such “haunted house”, my sisters and I found an old Sears catalog showing the styles of the 1800’s. It was fun looking through that catalog.
As a teacher, I can’t help but mention the educational value of exploring. Children are picking up new vocabulary that helps them in their reading. If they are doing something such as a scavenger hunt, they are learning problem-solving and deductive reasoning. The best thing of all is that families are having fun together and making memories that will last a lifetime.