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July 6, 2009

Map interactive family programs for your kids in CW's Historic Area

Do your children spout, “I’m bored!” during the summer months? Colonial Williamsburg’s A Kid’s Summer Program is the solution for the summer doldrums. Running through Aug. 23, young guests can use a brochure to get them started exploring the Historic Area.

The brochure contains program dates, times and locations, and suggested trade sites and evening programs. The Prize Star Zone gives families a checklist of sites to visit in the Historic Area. A coupon for $2 off a tricorn hat or mob cap and 10 percent off your purchase at Tarpley’s Store in the Historic Area will make mom and dad happy.

The brochure is available at the Visitor Center or any Colonial Williamsburg ticket office, as well as online at http://www.history.org/kids/visitUs/

Working hand in hand with the brochure, the complementary itinerary illustrates how to Look for Family Fun. On one side is a map with family-friendly sites highlighted. The opposite side offers descriptions of exhibition sites and programs that include:

Benjamin Powell House, open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. An original house where kids and families of all types get their hands on history. Lessons, chores and games galore!

Get Revved! in front of the Raleigh Tavern, 10:45 a.m. daily. Join the interpreters and learn how best to enjoy the premier attraction, Revolutionary City®. Find out when and where you are in history and how to interact with what is going on in front of, behind, beside, all around you.

Brickyard. Don’t miss this opportunity go get dirty! Your kids will love jumping into the clay and treading it in preparation for making bricks.

Games and Toys for All Girls and Boys, Palace Green. Open daily, weather permitting. 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 1:30-4:30 p.m. Try your hand at an 18th-century game or enjoy a toy that one of your great-great-great-great-grandparents played with. Even our Founding Fathers were children once!

The family itinerary is available at the Visitor Center or any Colonial Williamsburg ticket office, as well as online at http://www.history.org/visit/whatToSeeAndDo/historicArea/itineraries.cfm.

“A Kid’s Summer Program” activities center around two main areas of the town-sized Historic Area. Downtown—Near the Capitol features the premier family site, the Benjamin Powell House, with special activities at the Gaol (Jail) and the popular Revolutionary City program. The second area is Uptown—Near the Palace, Courthouse and Magazine features “Games and Toys for All Girls and Boys” on Palace Green from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. and “The Geddy House” and “The Magazine—A Hub of Military Activity” from 2-3:30 p.m. daily. All About Town invites you to explore other sites and programs scattered around the Historic Area, including Great Hopes Plantation, the Brickyard and “Dancing at Home.”

Additional activities that are back by popular demand include:

The Apprentice! Tour, 9:30, 9:55 and 10:20 a.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. See ticket for starting location. On this guided tour, young guests visit three trade shops and decide just what they want to be when they grow up. The tradesmen and women share some of the arts and mysteries of their trades providing an exclusive interactive experience to prospective “apprentices.” Children receive a bag with descriptions of the trades to visit, along with a marbled paper cover to bring them all together. Each trade young guests visit provides them with a memento to take home. At the end of the tour they will have what they need to decide what trade they want to pursue. Tickets are $15 for adults and children age 6 and over and $7.50 for children under 6, in addition to any Colonial Williamsburg admission ticket. All children must be accompanied by an adult.

Let’s Go to the Farm (formerly The Apprentice Goes to the Farm), 10:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. See ticket for starting location. This popular tour takes young guests and their families where most of the free and enslaved population lived in Virginia before, during and after the American Revolution. At Great Hopes Plantation, children may help work the crops, draw and carry the water, help with building, see some livestock and learn about the life of 18th-century small farmers and their enslaved workers. Young guests receive a bag with descriptions of the life skills they experience, along with a marbled paper cover to bring them all together. Tickets cost $15 for adults and children age 6 and over and $7.50 for children under 6, in addition to any Colonial Williamsburg admission ticket. All children must be accompanied by an adult. See ticket for starting location.

A Colonial Williamsburg ticket provides access to these programs. A separate ticket is needed where indicated.

Established in 1926, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is the not-for-profit educational institution that preserves and operates the restored 18th-century Revolutionary capital of Virginia as a town-sized living history museum, telling the inspirational stories of our nation’s founding men and women. Within the restored and reconstructed buildings, historic interpreters, attired as colonial men and women from slaves to shopkeepers to soldiers, relate stories of colonial Virginia society and culture – stories of our journey to become Americans – while historic trades people research, demonstrate and preserve the 18th-century world of work and industry. As Colonial Williamsburg interprets life in the time of the American Revolution guests interact with history through “Revolutionary City®” – a dramatic live street theater presentation.

Williamsburg is located in Virginia’s Tidewater region, 20 minutes from Newport News, within an hour’s drive of Richmond and Norfolk, and 150 miles south of Washington, D.C., off Interstate 64. For more information about Colonial Williamsburg, call 1-800-HISTORY or visit Colonial Williamsburg’s Web site at www.history.org.

Media Contact:
Penna Rogers
(757) 220-7121

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