Library and museum staff work to share local history with Estes Park children.

ESTES PARK
The Estes Park Museum’s Curator of Education and the Estes Valley Public Library’s Youth & Family Services Team collaborated to offer three Discovery Packs on local history for circulation. Discovery Packs are theme-based, developmentally appropriate kits that encourage children’s literacy skills.  The Museum hopes to reach young families and engage them with local history during the Town’s 100^th Anniversary by donating the three packs.

The first Museum pack covers the topic of “Estes Park Then and Now,” and includes a copy of the Estes Park Museum Friends Press book Tracks in Time and a stack of photographs capturing historical landmarks around town on cards. The cards can be used for matching and a memory game. The second pack explores natural history in “Our Animals with Antlers,” which contains elk and mule deer stuff animals, a little booklet entitled The Elk of Estes Park that explains the reintroduction of elk in Estes Park, and the use of Stanley Steamer Mountain Wagons to transport them here. The third pack is called “Spin Around Town in a Stanley Steamer” and contains a large map of Estes Park with colorful landmarks and printouts of real Stanley Steamers so families can enjoy a “site tour” pretending to drive around town.

Old Church Shops – Then and Now

The three packs from the Museum join the Library’s nearly 100 packs in circulation. It is through play that children learn about their world and the things in it. Play allows children and their parents and/or grandparents to explore their environment, to learn how it works and how they relate to it. The Museum is proud to contribute these three Discovery Packs so that children and their families will get to have their own experience with local history. An adult library district card holder can check out a Discovery Pack.

The Museum wishes to thank Youth Librarians Melanie Kozlowski and Apelles Morales for this partnership as well as Audrey Niemuth, mother and educator, who suggested the pack project and brainstormed ideas. Also, retired Estes Park Elementary School Teacher Deb Richardson helped nurture the project.

The mission of the Estes Park Museum is to conduct activities that preserve, share and respect the unique history of Estes Park. For more information, call the Estes Park Museum at 970-586-6256 or visit the Museum’s website at www.estes.org/museum. Museum admission is free.