PROGRAMS FOR BOY SCOUTS AND GIRL SCOUTS
The Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association welcomes Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to Deerfield, Massachusetts, with overnights and workshops designed to meet requirements for specific merit badges.
Overnights take place at the Indian House Children’s Museum and include the opportunity to wear 18th century clothing and cook authentic meals at the open hearth. Other activities vary depending upon badge requirements. For instance, Boy Scouts meet American Cultures requirements by hands-on examination of housing, clothing, food, stories, and games of Eastern Woodland Native American cultures as they also learn about colonial English lifeways. Junior Girl Scouts meet Playing in the Past badge requirements by researching the lives of girls taken captive in a 1704 raid on Deerfield and sewing costume accessories in addition to learning about colonial lifeways. Please see the following for fees and more specific details.
Workshops take place at the Indian House Children’s Museum, Memorial Hall Museum, or the Deerfield Teachers’ Center. Typically, they last from one to 2.5 hours. Please see the following offerings for Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts. Shorter workshops can be combined to fit into one longer visit, with a reduced fee.
Workshop fees and times of availability vary and are listed with workshop descriptions. To register for an overnight or workshop, please contact Lynne Manring at: 413-774-7476, ext. 330 or email
CUB SCOUTS WORKSHOPS
(Ages 7-10)
Tiger Elective Adventure: Stories in Shapes
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- May through November; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1-1.5 hours
Location- Memorial Hall Museum
Explore a collection of paintings or photographs at Memorial Hall Museum. View the quilt collection and create a quilt square of your own design using paper squares and triangles, and glue.
Tiger Elective Adventure: Tiger Tales
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1-1.5 hours
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
Play with old-fashioned toys and games at the Indian House Children’s Museum and make a simple board game to take home.
Wolf Elective Adventure: Digging in the Past
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- any month; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1 hour
Location- Deerfield Teachers’ Center
Play a game that demonstrates your knowledge of dinosaurs. Examine images of dinosaur footprints, fossilized footprints, and a plaster cast of a footprint and create (by drawing) a dinosaur that might have made the footprint. Then find out about the real dinosaurs that made the footprints.
Wolf Elective Adventure: Finding Your Way
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- any month; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1-1.5 hours
Location- Deerfield Teachers’ Center
Draw a map- start by examining some old maps of the Connecticut River Valley area, and a Native American map from a different part of the country that measures travel in a different way. Discuss which symbols and techniques you will use on your map. Look at compass roses on some old maps and design your own.
Bear Required Adventure: Paws for Action (Duty to Country)
Visit a place of historical interest- when Cub scouts visit Memorial Hall Museum for “Stories in Shapes”, or Indian House Children’s Museum for “Tiger Tales”, they will have fulfilled this requirement.
Webelos Adventure: Cast Iron Chef
Fee- $10 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday late afternoon/early evening or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1.5-2.5 hours
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
Use a Dutch oven and an open campfire- make a colonial meal of stew and cookies. Cook the stew over an open fire outside. Bake the cookies in a Dutch oven on a colonial hearth inside. Build a fire and safely extinguish it- lay the fires, light them, tend them, and when done cooking, extinguish them.
Webelos- AoL Elective Adventure: Art Explosion
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- May through November; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1-1.5 hours
Location- Memorial Hall Museum
Visit an exhibit at Memorial Hall Museum and discuss what you liked and why. Make a display of origami or kirigami projects- start by learning to make some origami shapes while at the museum.
BOY SCOUTS WORKSHOPS
(Ages 11- 17)
Indian Lore
Fee- packaged program; $40 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- May through November; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- three; 2 hours, 1-1.5 hours, 2 hours
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum and Memorial Hall Museum
Session #1- 2 hours
Everyday life for Pocumtuck and Abenaki peoples- try on clothing, view historic images of shelters, play 3 games, sample food and try grinding corn, learn a word or phrase in the Abenaki language, learn about beliefs and where and how these people live today. Visit the Native American Room at Memorial Hall Museum to see artifacts and learn about stone tools; try napping flint. Boys will also list 10 artifacts by tribe or nation and describe their shape, size, and use.
Session #2- 1 to 1.5 hours
Make and decorate Hubbub games and stick & ring toys
Session #3- 2 hours
Learn about wampum belts and start making them.
We can also provide recipes, links to Abenaki language websites, images about hunting, fishing, trapping, and examples of Eastern Woodland Native stories.
Textile
Fee- packaged program; $25 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- three; one hour, two hours, one hour
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
Session #1- 1 hour
Learn the steps in making yarn, card wool, and use a floor loom.
Session #2- 2 hours
Make a backstrap loom and begin weaving.
Session #3- 1 hour
Make a felt ball; dye fabric from natural sources such as onion skins, black walnuts, goldenrod flowers, carrots, or spinach.
American Cultures
Note: this offering is also available as an overnight program. Please see “Boy Scouts Overnight Program” below for more details.
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 2-2.75 hours
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
Colonial English activities- try on clothing, lie on a “rope” bed, make a simple snack over an open fire, learn a dance. Colonial Eastern Woodland Native American activities- learn about clothing, shelter, taste food, and play games.
American Heritage
Fee- $6 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- any month; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1 hour
Location- Deerfield Teachers’ Center
Learn about the Eastern European immigrants who came to the Connecticut River Valley- their impact on life here, how people stereotyped and discriminated against them, and their contributions to our culture. Try an Ellis Island simulation activity and taste some food.
We can also provide resources and background information on the Raid on Deerfield (via our website), historic walks and trails, suggested films and music, career opportunities and how to prepare for them.
Basketry
Fee- packaged program; $30 per boy; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or any time on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- two; each are 2 hours in length
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
Session #1
Learn about types of baskets (plaited, coiled, ribbed, wicker) and examine examples of each; make samples of 3 different types of weave (such as tabby, twill, herringbone). Start weaving a square ribbed basket.
Session #2
Finish square baskets and start a round coiled basket.
Option: You might think about adding to Session #1 a 30-minute guided tour of the baskets at Memorial Hall Museum. These include 19th century and contemporary Mohawk and Abenaki baskets, and a variety of baskets from the Arts and Crafts Movement (1890s-1920s). As an alternative, you can explore the baskets in our online digital collection.
BOY SCOUTS OVERNIGHT PROGRAM
(Ages 11-17)
American Cultures
Fee- $400 for 8-20 scouts
Schedule- April through December; Friday or Saturday nights or any night in summer. Boys arrive at 4:00 PM and depart at 11:00 AM the following day.
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
Learn about 18th C. English and Eastern Woodland Native American cultures- boys wear colonial English clothing, cook an authentic English dinner and breakfast over an open hearth, make and play an English game, learn about Native lifeways, learn Native stories, and perform them at bedtime.
JUNIOR GIRL SCOUTS WORKSHOP
(Grades 4 & 5)
Flowers
Fee- packaged program; $35 per girl; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- two; each are 2 hours in length
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Look under the petals
• Find out how flowers help people
• Have fun with flowers
Session #1
Examine botanical flower images created by the early 19th century botanist/artist, Orra White Hitchcock. See how many you recognize and can name. Learn to use a hand drill, saw, and sandpaper to create your own flower press.
In between sessions #1 and #2, girls can search their yards and neighborhoods for flowers depicted in Orra White’s artwork, and they can collect (with permission!) and press flowers to be used during their 2nd session.
Session #2
Use colored card stock and glue to make notecards decorated with pressed flowers. Enjoy a cup of chamomile tea while making herbal remedies that contain flowers, and learn about their healthful benefits. Remedies might include bath bags, sleep bags, hand lotion or hand cream.
JUNIOR GIRL SCOUTS OVERNIGHT PROGRAM
(Grades 4 & 5)
Playing in the Past
This is a packaged program consisting of a pre-overnight workshop and a one-night overnight.
Fee- packaged program; $430 for 8-20 girls. One adult per 10 girls will be admitted free of charge. Additional adults pay $30 each.
Schedule- April through December; for the overnight- Friday or Saturday nights or any night in summer. Girls arrive at 4:00 PM and depart at 11:00 AM the following day. For the pre-overnight workshop- weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one one-night overnight and one 2-hour workshop
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Decide who you are
• Create a costume
• Experience daily life
• Have some old-fashioned fun
• Become your character
Pre-overnight workshop- 2 hours
Scouts learn about the 1704 raid on Deerfield, MA, in which many captives were taken and marched to Canada. Each girl takes the role of a female and begins researching her life and captive experience, and then starts a diary entry or report (speech) about her life. These will be shared during the overnight. Girls will also start hand-sewing two 18th C. costume accessories- a pocket and a kerchief- that they can wear during the overnight.
There should be time allotted between the workshop and overnight for completing the written pieces. It is ideal if the pockets and kerchiefs are completed by the overnight so that they can be worn, but there will also be time for sewing during the 18th C. chores, if needed.
Overnight
The overnight meets the requirements of either holding a living history party or attending a historical event. Girls will wear colonial clothing and cook an 18th C. dinner and breakfast over an open fire. They will experience other typical 18th C. girls’ chores such as scouring and carding wool, stringing pumpkin or apples for drying, shelling beans, using a yoke and buckets, sewing, using a flat iron, or changing the sheets on a colonial rope bed. Scouts will also play with colonial toys and games and make and learn to play a board game that they can take home. At bedtime girls will share their captive stories via imaginary diary entries or speeches.
CADETTE GIRL SCOUTS WORKSHOPS
(Grades 6-8)
New Cuisines
Fee- $140 base fee plus $3 per head for each individual (including scouts, accompanying adults and PVMA museum teachers)
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 3 hours
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Find out how well you know your region
• Whip up a dish from another time period
Cadettes will create a typical 19th century New England meal using “receipts” (recipes) from the time period. They will cook the whole meal at the hearth and enjoy it either as “nooning” (lunch) or “supper” (dinner). Menu: codfish cakes, boiled cabbage, pumpkin pie.
Public Speaker
Fee- $6 per girl; all adults are free
Schedule- May through November; weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 1 hour
Location- Memorial Hall Museum’s 19th century schoolroom
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Get a feel for performing solo
• Focus on body language
• Find your voice
Girls start by learning the meaning of “elocution” and why it was considered to be an important skill to have. They then learn the proper stance for public speaking in the 19th century and how to convey a variety of emotions using their bodies and facial expressions. They also learn about voice control and then practice their newly-learned skills through a group recitation exercise called “The Pause”.
Book Artist
Fee- packaged program; $30 per girl; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- two sessions; 2 hours, 1 hour
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Explore the art of bookbinding
• Get familiar with the insides of a book
• Try out book artist techniques
• Focus on function
Session #1- 2 hours
Examine a variety of books for methods of construction and printing and learn about the different parts of a book. Make marbled and stenciled papers to be used as endpapers or covers when books are constructed in the second session. Fold and cut a book. Stitch a “signature” (a book section or booklet).
Session #2- 1 hour
Examine a “copybook” and learn about its use. Brainstorm ideas for the uses of the books girls will make. Make books.
Woodworker
Fee- $20 per girl; all adults are free
Schedule- April through December; weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- one; 2- 2.5 hours
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Swing a hammer
• Keep it level
• Use a screwdriver
• Saw some wood
• Build something yourself
Girls will examine a sundial and figure out how it works. They will saw pieces needed for sundials and sand the edges. Compasses will be used to draw half-circles on the bases. Girls will practice using a hammer and nails by creating their initials in nails on scrap wood. Sundial markings will be made by using rulers and markers. In place of numbers, tacks or brads will be nailed in. Screws will be used to join pieces and a T-square will be used to make sure the pieces are perpendicular to each other. Girls will use way-finding compasses to position their sundials, and watches to see if the time is depicted accurately.
SENIOR GIRL SCOUTS WORKSHOPS
(Grades 9-10)
Textile Artist
Fee- packaged program; $30 per girl; all adults are free
Schedule- April through November; weekday afternoons or anytime on a weekend or summer day
Sessions- two sessions; each is 2 hours in length
Location- Indian House Children’s Museum and Memorial Hall Museum
This program meets fully or partially, the following requirements:
• Choose your textile
• Learn the basics
• Make something for everyday use
• Create a gift or item for a special occasion
Session #1
Tour Memorial Hall Museum’s quilt and sampler collections and the Blue & White Society embroidery exhibit; keep a “look book” for inspiration as you tour. Chat with a museum teacher about her textile arts- what inspired her to start, how she learned, what inspires her pieces, what she loves about what she does, how her work might have changed over time, what she does with the end results, and how the art fits into her life. (Textile arts to be discussed will vary depending upon museum teacher, but might include spinning, weaving, quilting, knitting, or bobbin lacemaking). Learn about how to design a woven fabric and set up a loom. Try weaving on a floor loom.
Session #2
Start hand-sewing a potholder made from handwoven fabric (made by other students). Design a counted cross-stitch work on graph paper, learn the stitch, and start sewing.