Deb, I was only able to give you that advice after having raised two very busy kids. Until you've carted them all over the place in mom's taxi . . . whew, no wonder I'm tired, LOL. I had another thought. This is the lights, bells, and whistles generation where Playstation and Xboxes where they learn about some historical things (myth more often than not) on the computer. They often need a lot of stimulation. Saw a little girl on Antiques Roadshow a few weeks ago. She was remarkable. About 10-12, she had obviously been paying a lot of attention and had brought--if I recall correctly--a painting that her mother had dumpster-dived for. So that makes me wonder. Are there treasures in your museum not unlike things that one would find on the television show, and could you give it a name like that? Something about come to our roadshow and learn about the treasures in our museum, see if you have things like that at home in grandma and grandpa's house. While you're showing them things, you give them the provenance about those things, and maybe a checklist they take with them (one piece of paper) to look for comparable items when they leave. And you connect them to the Antiques Roadshow early by asking this of their teachers when you ask them to partner. You encourage them to watch that ahead of time. Just a thought. It would be there to reinforce what you have shown. Tell them to look at, say, a washboard, and then think of the many ways in which laudry was done: by the creek with a rock, in a washtub with washboard, in a wringer machine, in a front loader, top loader, at the laundromat, in the dryel bags, etc. Ok, I'm rambling, but that might get them to thinking and more eager to participate. Now, if you REALLY want to get wild, you find out if/when Roadshow is coming to your town, and you have these little geniuses whose lives you enriched appear on TV. Would take some work, but attendance would go up . . . 15 minutes of fame and such, don't you know? Wink. Don't feel badly. You tried. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. The problem is, they're not even thirsty! --- Deb Fuller <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I think Indy had a good point about trying to > schedule activities in the Spring > with all the sports, proms and graduations going on. > We moved it back from > early June since it was so hot last year. Wouldn't > you know that it was 90+ in > April this year. We can't win. :( ===== Indigo Nights [log in to unmask] ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).