Your Kids Can Discover Huntsville with These New Activity Books
Looking for a few fun activities for kids that encourage their creativity and sneak in a few history lessons about Huntsville and its architecture? The Historic Huntsville Foundation (HHF) debuts three projects in May guaranteed to tweak the imaginations of kids while they learn about our city.
The FREE activity book, Finding Huntsville: A Kid-Friendly Field Guide to Huntsville’s Historic Architecture, takes kids on a scavenger hunt around the courthouse square. Kids learn about the architectural styles of five historic buildings: the Church of the Nativity, Harrison Brothers Hardware, the I. Schiffman Building, the First National Bank Building, and the Madison County Courthouse.
This activity book makes learning so easy, that before long your kids (and you!) will be throwing out terms like quatrefoil, Romanesque Revival, and International style with ease.
Finding Huntsville is an interactive guide, giving kids photographs and other visual cues to help them identify the architectural details of a building. Lessons are reinforced with exercises such as word games, coloring a stained glass window from the Church of the Nativity, or drawing a column from the First National Bank Building.
The guide shows kids how to identify the design components of a building and see it like an architectural historian. Finding Huntsville activity books are FREE at Harrison Brothers Hardware or the Huntsville & Madison County Visitor Center.
A Rocket City Coloring Book!
Kids can color a page from history with Color Me, Huntsville coloring books that debut May 18 at Harrison Brothers Hardware. Artists Carole Forêt, Christina Green and Christina Wegman each provided sketches for a coloring book featuring their artwork. Add colored pencils and imaginations, and your kids will have masterpieces in the making. Each sketch is accompanied by a brief history lesson that explains why the building is important to Huntsville.
Color Me, Huntsville celebrates the diversity of Huntsville’s historic places, from the 1819 Weeden House to the Saturn V Rocket, from the Buffalo Soldiers Memorial to the Water Tower at Lowe Mill.
Fun history lessons are snuck in along the way. Who doesn’t want to know about the house that got stuck in the middle of Franklin Street? Or learn about the Backwards House that faces the wrong direction because the builder didn’t understand the house plans? Or visit the memorial to soldiers who fought as fiercely as buffaloes?
Coloring books sell for $10 each at Harrison Brothers.
Finding Huntsville Walking Tour
May is the month that brings spring flowers, Mother’s Day, and history. (FYI: May is also National Preservation Month!). Our Bicentennial projects lets families experience Huntsville through its art, architecture, and history and take it all back home again.
CREATE EVEN MORE MEMORIES and sign up for a guided Finding Huntsville Walking Tour this Mother’s Day!
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[themify_box color=”lavender”]ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donna Castellano is Executive Director of the Historic Huntsville Foundation.[/themify_box]As a hyper-local website focused on all aspects of parenting in and around Morgan County, and the Tennessee Valley, River City Mom occasionally asks local parents to submit their stories for publication. This is part of our continual effort to represent varied viewpoints and experiences on our site. However, these articles should not be seen as necessarily expressing the views of Rocket City Mom Media Group, LLC.