My comrade over at Family Fun Twin Cities did a great feature on the Family Fun Tuesdays series at Caponi Art Park. So inspiring was she that I finally decided to quit putting off the trip (all the way to Eagan) and go the next open Tuesday on the calendar (which happened to be today).

Storyteller Jerry Blue was this particular Tuesday’s performer, bringing his Southern American and West African folk tales to the sculpture garden. We heard stories starring the familiar characters of Anansi and Br’er Rabbit (interactive and easy enough for my young daughters to follow). Storytelling as entertainment, explained Jerry Blue, evolved from oral tradition, or the passing of history orally from one generation to the next. His message to the children was to use storytelling as a way to speak up and use their own voices.

Other performers and presentations scheduled through August 27 include Mexican folk, flamenco and Aztec dancing, a puppet show with Open Eye Figure Theater, and many flavors of live music with both traditional and unusual instruments to learn about. Get the complete summer schedule here.

We finished our picnic about the same time the storytelling wrapped. Then the girls burned off energy exploring the meandering paths of the Art Park, pausing here and there to interpret sculptures. More than 30 of them can be found throughout the 60 acres of rolling trails (some of them pretty steep! You’ll get a good workout.). Olivia’s favorite was the serpent integrated into a hillside.

It was not the kind of park my 4-year-old daughter imagined we’d be going to when we set out that morning. But I assure you she was singing its praises by the time we were on our way out. The importance of creativity and nature in play is not lost on her.

For the Files: Caponi Art Park Learning Center is located at 1220 Diffley Road, Eagan, MN 55123.

Visitor hours:
May – October, Tues. thru Sun.
9 a.m. – 8 p.m. thru Labor Day

Family Fun Tuesdays are scheduled:
June 4 – August 27, 2013
10 – 11 a.m. in the sculpture garden
Admission is free with $4 donation per guest suggested.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: caponi art park, caponi family fun tuesdays, eagan minnesota, family fun twin cities, jerry blue

[The Minnesota State Parks Series chronicles the ever-expanding Kingston family's quest to complete the State Park Passport Club challenge.]

How appropriate that the day we leave for our annual summer lake vacation with TourDad’s family falls on National Get Outdoors Day! It was a nice kick-off to a week spent enjoying what Minnesota’s lakes, pines, and state parks have to offer. This year we were slated to travel as far north as sprawling Lake Vermilion and I was raring to hit two of those state parks I’d yet to see. We pulled into Scenic State Park, north of Grand Rapids, and were pleased to score free admission for National Get Outdoors Day.

We then proceeded to get outdoors! The kids were wound up from the long car trip and ran off steam at the Coon Lake beach. The park was created mainly to protect tracts of virgin red and white pine around the shores of Coon and Sandwick Lakes.

Another morsel of history: Scenic contains one of the most impressive collections of Civilian Conservation Corps structures in the state park system. We hunted down several examples, including the lovely historic lodge. Unfortunately the lodge was reserved; I missed my chance to get a peek at the CCC mementos inside.

As part of NGOD, a volunteer Master Naturalist was leading a children’s program about fish native to Scenic. You would not believe the knowledge of the other kids in attendance. Our crew definitely learned a thing or two – great preparation for the week ahead on Lake Vermilion!

The naturalist also suggested we hit the Chase Point Trail before leaving the park. The trail is an esker – a slender ridge formed by glacial activity – that separates Coon and Sandwick Lakes. Apparently Chase Point is a beautiful overlook, but I knew we’d never make it. The goal was to get the kids to hike far enough along the trail to be able to glimpse both lakes from the same spot. And they made it, the little champs.

We were done for the day at Scenic State Park, but we’d just begun a fantastic week of getting our family outdoors!

For the Files: Scenic State Park is located at 56956 Scenic Highway 7, Bigfork, MN 56628. Minnesota State Parks daily ($5) or annual ($25) permit required to enter (except, as we experienced, on National Get Outdoors Day!).  

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: bigfork, minnesota dnr, minnesota state park passport club, minnesota state parks, scenic state park

TourDad and I both gave the August Schell Brewery Tour in New Ulm pretty high marks. And sure, this may have had something to do with the generous samples that were passed out in the lovely tap room after the tour. But there was certainly much more to enjoy on the Schell grounds – for adults and kids as well, and we always appreciate a tour that accommodates the entire family.

So, how exactly does a brewery welcome children, you ask? Let’s start with the admission price. Children 12 and under are free, erasing anxiety that you’ll have to “schell” out big bucks for a tour they’ll whine their way through. Adults pay only $3 per ticket, further easing fears of wasted funds.

The kids kept their whining to a minimum because there were plenty of interesting things to observe on the tour: beautiful shrieking peacocks that wandered at will among the guests, an artesian spring tumbling down the hillside, and a mammoth copper kettle that brewed every single batch of Schell beer from the late nineteenth century to the turn of the twenty-first.

Their patience was rewarded with an extra-special treat. While TourMom and Dad were schooled on Schell beers in the tap room, the kids guzzled down glasses of their favorite Minnesota State Fair beverage: Schell-brewed 1919 Root Beer!

Now that I’ve shattered your belief that breweries are no place for kids (though clearly not designed with kids in mind) bring the little ones along if you need to. There were several on our visit. Tours run daily Memorial Day – Labor Day and sell out quickly. Should you need to wait for the next tour, check out the Museum of Brewing, admire the architecture, stalk the peacocks, and work up a thirst for some great local crafts.

For the Files: The August Schell Brewery is located at 1860 Schell Road, New Ulm, MN 56073. Tours, which are roughly an hour, operate year-round on the following schedule:

September – May 
Friday: 1:00 and 3:00
Saturday: Noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00
Sunday (Sept. – Dec.): 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00
Sunday (Jan. – May): 1:00

Summer Schedule
Tours run daily Memorial Day through Labor Day
Monday through Friday:  1:00, 2:30 and 4:00
Saturday:  Noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00
Sunday:  1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00

Admission is $3 ages 13 & up.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: local craft brewery, new ulm minnesota, schell brewery, twin cities

The Harkin Store, a Minnesota historical site on the outskirts of New Ulm, is a nice diversion if you happen to be driving along the scenic Minnesota River Valley. It’s a picturesque remnant of a town that vanished around the turn of the twentieth century. When the railroad bypassed the community of West Newton, the Harkin family’s fortunes changed and eventually led to the closing of the general store in 1901.

It’s as though time stopped the day the Harkins’ daughter decided to close up shop. She left the merchandise on the shelves where it would sit until her own daughter re-opened the store as a museum in 1938. The Minnesota Historical Society was able to purchase the site in the 1970’s and restore the treasure with – if I remember correctly – about 40% of its original stock intact.

Admission to view the Harkin Store and chat with its costumed guides is not steep. However, our kids were more interested in playing outside the shop (Andy purchased a harmonica and spent the time trying to master it on the stoop while his sisters chased each other nearby) than immersing themselves in history. And for this reason, I find purchasing a historical society membership to be a sweet deal. We bought one last year and it paid for itself after 3 – 4 visits to area historical sites.

While the older kids amused themselves outside, TourDad, the toddler and I browsed the wares. We also warmed up at the wood stove and enjoyed the American Traditional music of Bob Bovee and Gail Heil on fiddle, banjo, guitar and harmonica (and Andy, backup harmonica on the front porch).

The Harkin Store offers programs throughout the summer and well into the fall to enhance your understanding of what life was like when the store was open for business.

For the Files: Harkin Store is located at 66250 County Road 21, New Ulm, MN 56073. Open Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day: Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
May and September through October 20: Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission: $5/adults, $3/children 6 – 17, free for children 5 & under and Historical Society members

A complete calendar of Harkin Store events for 2013 can be found here.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: family event, harkin store, kids event, minnesota historical society, new ulm minnesota, nicollet county

[The Minnesota State Parks Series chronicles the ever-expanding Kingston family's quest to complete the State Park Passport Club challenge.]

What more fitting a weekend to visit Upper Sioux Agency State Park than over Memorial Day? There was nothing special going on in the park to commemorate the lives lost 150 years ago during the U.S. – Dakota War, but we walked the trails through the historic site and thought about what life must have been like at the Yellow Medicine Agency.

Yellow Medicine was constructed to oversee the terms of the 1851 Traverse des Sioux. Indian agents made it their mission to assimilate the Dakota into European-style farming communities. The agency consisted of housing, a school to teach English subjects, and facilities to introduce carpentry and blacksmithing. The kids and I examined piles of what looked to be the crumbling remains of some of these buildings, most of them destroyed during conflict with the government.

Tensions were high during the summer of 1862. Dakota Indians, living on a reservation along the Minnesota River Valley, were near starvation as government promises to supply food were not kept. Fighting broke out at several sites along the reservation and resulted in the destruction of many settlements and the loss of many lives. You can learn more of the story inside the park’s interpretive center. And for kids with shorter attention spans, there’s a cozy tipi stocked with picture books to curl up with.

For kids who thrive on gadgets, the parks loans GPS units to take on a high-tech treasure hunt. Andy (8) loved leading the family in search of one of eight special Dakota War trading cards placed in caches along the Minnesota River Valley. Because he knew I wanted the card, he allowed me to keep his prize, a souvenir of the unique way our family spent this Memorial Day.

For the Files: Upper Sioux Agency State Park is located at
5908 Highway 67, Granite Falls, MN 56241.  Minnesota State Parks daily ($5) or annual ($25) permit required to enter. There is no additional charge to visit the historic site.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: family event, minnesota state parks, minnesota state parks passport club, mn dnr, upper sioux agency state park, us dakota war, yellow medicine agency

If you’ll remember, the day Como Conservatory cut the ribbon on the brand new Ordway Gardens addition, people were still crunching through snow to get to it. I’m glad I waited for a balmy afternoon in May to bring the kids for a run-through. Okay, truthfully it was cloudy and sprinkling on and off but that didn’t dampen their spirits much. We hitched a couple of free rides on Cafesjian’s Carousel and headed straight for the new Ordway wing.

The kids were pretty blasé about the bonsai collection. Como must have anticipated this and thus provides a touchscreen kiosk where techies can pot and trim a virtual bonsai, and a play table for kids to build their own Japanese Garden. Exhibits on the wall educate on the history and design elements of Japanese Gardens.

It was this calm, tranquil garden that the kids really wanted to get to. You know, so they could serenely walk the paths listening to the sounds of their footsteps and contemplating their harmonious relationships with each other. (Right. Not on my watch are they going to do that.) Instead, they skipped across the stone bridges, raced each other on the paths and got as close to the water as they could get without taking a swim. Not tranquil, but happy kids out enjoying the long-overdue blessing of spring.

For the Files: Como Park Zoo & Conservatory is located at 1225 Estabrook Drive, Saint Paul, MN 55103. Admission is FREE (but donations are appreciated). The Ordway Gardens are open year-round; the Japanese Garden is open May – September.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: como conservatory, como japanese garden, como park, family event, free event, kids event, ordway gardens, st. paul, twin cities

TourDad was on a mission. I had left the house at 8:30 a.m. for a bit of a retreat with my own mom, and he knew he had a slim window of time in which to carry out his plan. So he rounded up the four kids, hauled them over to the ArtScraps Reuse Store in St. Paul, and they set about collecting the means to make the mother of all Mother’s Day cards for me. (I should note: MD was the following day. This was not some better-late-than-never effort here. And when I found out he survived bringing our little 18-month-old hurricane into this particular craft shop, I was extra touched.)

ArtScraps is a quirky place packed with overstock items, craft supplies, donations, decorations and other odds and ends that would otherwise be heading for a landfill. The non-profit that operates the store, ArtStart, offers these products in an effort to reduce waste and stimulate art-making. In other words, you can’t come with a shopping list of what you’d like to find for a project, but you’ll probably come away with plenty of inspiration. My little artists were offered buckets upon arrival and methodically picked through the bins and shelves. Prices, they discovered, are fairly friendly to a child’s wallet.

In addition to being a resource for a great Mother’s Day project, ArtScraps hosts birthday parties and art camps for all ages. ArtStart is a familiar fixture around community events such as the Flint Hills International Children’s Festival and produces the annual EcoArts Fest on Harriet Island.

For the Files: ArtScraps is located at 1459 St. Clair Ave. St. Paul, MN 55105 (map it). Hours are Mon. – Fri. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturday 10 – 4 p.m.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: artscraps, artstart, ecoarts fest, st. paul, twin cities

Spring arrived just in time to coincide with the beginning of intersession at my kids’ school. They currently attend year-round, which gives us most of the month of May to enjoy the mild weather, uncrowded playgrounds and other perks that come with having unconventional school breaks. Having the older kids home is also a great motivator for me to plan fun things to do over their vacation. We started our break off today with a trip to The Works, a kid-oriented engineering and technology museum in Bloomington.

This was not our first trip to The Works. My kids are familiar with and very much enjoy the interactive exhibits offered. My son (now 8) is content building and racing K’NEX vehicles. My older daughters (now 6 and 4) are fascinated that they can lift their mom clear off the floor with a little help from a pulley and some elbow grease. My toddler was delighted to topple as many structures as her siblings could engineer with foam bricks. An upstairs Design Lab has allowed them to freely tinker with circuits, magnets and other building materials.

The new Sensor Zone exhibit has been added since our last visit. This was the one attraction we all worked cooperatively on – navigating a maze rigged with various sensors you could either figure out how to trip or avoid. We also enjoyed playing with the sensors in the “Studio Remix” to customize our own dance party. Chilling in the chairs triggered beats and instrumentals; dancing on certain spots on the rug created customized lighting effects.

Now, I mentioned this was not our first visit to The Works. But it was our first time checking out their Pre-K Mondays program. (And I’ve got to make a plug here for the new family outings website I’m working on with two other great Twin Cities mom bloggers – Family Fun Twin Cities – because without the site’s extensive calendar of events I wouldn’t have found this special program at The Works!) My incentive was the half-price admission offered to children during these select Mondays. When you’ve got four kids in tow, deals like these can be the deciding factor in whether we’ll tour or not.

In addition to the price break, parents are handed out suggestions on how to make the most of their visit with their 3-5 year olds. And if you happen to be like me and are bringing along older kids for the ride, they’ll still qualify for the discount and be entertained with all the museum has to offer.

For the Files: The Works is located at 9740 Grand Avenue, Bloomington, MN 55420 (map it). Hours can be found here. Admission is a flat $8 per person, children 2 and under are free. Special admission applies to Pre-K Mondays: children are admitted for $4. Upcoming dates Pre-K Mondays are 5/20/13 and 6/4/13.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: bloomington minnesota, family event, family fun twin cities, kids event, the works museum, twin cities

For 60 minutes, a crew of 25 kids (and a few hovering parents) armed with donated lunch meat, cheese slices and loaves of bread, cranked out enough sandwiches to feed 300 hungry people. Our 4-H club partnered with Minneapolis-based The Sandwich Project this month to get the kids in a service frame of mind. It was incredibly inspiring to watch the high-school aged club members mentor the younger children along the assembly line.

What made The Sandwich Project so ideal for our club is that it’s a service activity that nearly any age can participate in. Our kids helped shop for sandwich fixings ahead of time and then, under the watchful eyes of their seasoned club comrades, slapped together and stuffed bags of sandwiches to be later delivered to one of ten drop-off sites in the Metro. The sandwiches eventually make their way to various local food shelves and homeless shelters.

It’s not necessary to be part of an organization to get involved; though sharing the project with other families greatly reduced the cost and time required to complete it. More information about the project, including how to submit a request to make sandwiches, can be found on http://www.thesandwichprojectmn.org/.

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: the sandwich project minnesota, twin cities, volunteer with kids

Just the thought of venturing into one of the Walker Art Center’s pristine galleries accompanied by my four young children can bring on heart palpitations. I’m on pins and needles the whole time. One kid’s on my hip, another I’ve got by the hand, and the older two I’m constantly muttering at to use EYES ONLY. I don’t blame them for wanting to touch the art. Parts of the exhibit we visited this past Saturday were just begging to be climbed on. Instead, the kids settled for completing the gallery activity and using their imaginations to describe how they might play among the artwork.

I’m willing to risk the art-museum jitters for the Walker’s First Free Saturdays, though. It’s a fantastic deal for a bigger family to experience the world-class exhibits without a corresponding price tag. Plus, the museum is packed full of activities that truly appeal to children. We moved from one to the next over a span of about two hours: art-making in the Star Tribune lab, a special storytime with author Chris Monroe, and a kitchen lab in which we sniffed our noses numb trying to guess the sources of 30 different scents.

I won’t deny that once we’ve cleared the museum and everyone is securely buckled into the van I breathe a deep sigh of relief. (Not so much as a talking-to from the Gallery Guards this time!) Could it be that with each visit to the Walker their appreciation for art cows them into being on their best behavior? I’d love to think so!

For the Files: Free First Saturdays are held monthly from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. All ages are welcome and activities are planned accordingly. Ramp parking is $4.

Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403
612.375.7600

About the Author: Anne Kingston is the Owner and Founder of Tourmoms.com.

Tags: chris monroe, family event, first free saturdays, free event, kids event, Minneapolis, twin cities, walker art center