Kids learn traditional crafts, games

BANGOR – Pickering Square was transformed into a children’s amusement area during the weekend.

Tents circled the cobblestone courtyard, where children attending the National Folk Festival could play quiet games, make crafts, listen to stories and music, create paper and do much more.

“It’s been hopping out here,” said Andrea Starks, director of education and exhibits at the nearby Maine Discovery Museum.

The children’s museum, which extended its hours for the weekend, was responsible for organizing children’s activities for the festival. The Hudson Museum at the University of Maine helped out by providing traditional American Indian crafts and games for youngsters as well as their families.

“What we planned were intended to be traditional activities that children would have been playing 100 years ago in Maine,” Starks said.

As parents and grandparents helped children make corn-husk and yarn dolls or play the hoop-rolling game or jump rope, they began to recall stories from their own childhoods, Starks said.

“It’s been very intuitive and intergenerational,” she said.

Emma Parsons, 8, and her sister, Beth, 4, of Hampden helped each other walk with tin-cup stilts Sunday afternoon as their mother, Mary Parsons, watched. “It’s fantastic to have a nice quiet area for the kids – away from the crowd,” Parsons said.

For Rebecca Pelletier, 8, of Brewer, the best part of the festival was Tony Sohns’ “Bug Zoo.” The youngster, who has volunteered to help Sohns in the past, was in her element as she told visitors about the giant millipede she was handling.

“It’s sorta scaly and slick,” she said. “Kinda like a snake.”

And the adult volunteers had fun too as they helped children with various activities and offered encouraging words.

“It’s so nice to see all the families,” volunteer Shirley Sibley said. “It’s really a family thing.”