The Ingersoll Cheese & Dairy Museum is another place we visiting with KICK this past year. It was a good visit and very different from the Alymer Dairy Museum.
The children started off their time here all gathered together in front of the MARVELLOUS wood carving which I would dearly LOVE to show you but they had this annoying little sign “No pictures please”. GROWL. I tell you it was FANTASTIC. Someone took their time carving out the history of the pioneers coming, how they travelled by wagon, moved the milk jugs in the early days and what not. The clearing of the roads. The detail in this carving was simply amazing. You are ever up in Ingersoll.. GO TO THE MUSEUM if only to see this wood carving.
Anyways, it kept me fascinated while the children listened to and participated in the program they had prepared for them. Learning to card wood, dressing up like pioneers and such like.
The group was then divided in half with one group getting to play with the old time toys, and the other half touring the dairy museum.
We went to the dairy museum first. They crammed a lot into this small barn. They kept the youth in a small group and moved around in an organized fashion. It was nice the building was small because then I could move around and take pics and be unobtrusive and still listen at the same time. 🙂 They gave the children ample time to ask questions. Did you know they produced the largest cheese? Amazing how big it was.
After this the children moved to playing with the older toys. They made a number of fun today. I’ll have to see if I can find my notes. 🙂 Here we go, my notes:
13 years to build wood carving of pioneer scene
What would bring along….chickens, turkeys, ducks, cow, horse, oxen, sheep, seed. Animals and plants that would help them start their new lives as farmers.
Showed how to work the wool you’d get from sheep
Children put on some of the clothes the pioneers would wear. Clothing made to last as long as possible. Made skirts longer and then hemmed short and let down as needed. Men with loose fitting clothes to help with doing all the physical work they engaged in.
Redcoats, would go along to help protect the settlers, also represented the government.
Three sisters corn beans squash. Corn supported bean, bean provided nitrogen, squash protected the roots. Large leaves shaded out the weeds.
In Canada we tended to get along with the natives, learning from them.
Ingersoll is a town built around the cheese industry.
The youth were able to practice walking on stilts, playing hand coordination games, Jacob’s ladder and other games. They worked on making simple animation toys and generally had a lot of fun playing.
It was a rather cool day so none of us lingered long outside once the children were done playing. Some of us left, others of us moved inside to enjoy the non-dairy part of the museum.
It was a nice day out, good to chat with new members, good to have fun with each other. My son would have preferred to tour the museums rather needing to sit through a pioneers presentation (as I think most of the older students would have too) but the stilts! HUGE hit and a lot of fun. 🙂 As were the hand coordination games. Makes me want to practice using pencils. 🙂
They had the children do some art work as well. Learning to make a cartoon figure, making masks for the younger ones and such forth as well. This is my attempt at the Sponge Bob they walked us through making. 
It was a good museum to visit with nice variety of artifacts.
