Historic Model Trains
It’s really hard these days to persuade kids to be interested in our traditions. If it doesn’t connect to the power grid and add to the monthly electrical bill, lots of boys and girls are just not that into it. This is after all the cyber age and if a child isn’t reading three things at once he feels like he is slacking. Even though they consider history to be what happened last week, it’s still important to find ways to get them involved with it. It’s not enough to know that there were some guys named Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Benjamin who now have their faces on our money. I don’t mean to get on my high horse, but it’s our duty as patriotic Americans to pass on some sense of our rich traditions to them. So how do we get them to crack the book on the traditions of this country without feeling like we’re pulling teeth? model locomotives can put our youngsters on the track to becoming more culturally and historically literate. Yes. That’s right, historic model locomotives. Here’s how to teach history with toy locomotives:
Use locomotives as a subtle vehicle for history:
If you’ve already gotten your kids involved in model locomotives, a great second step is to create a model train set-up that accurately reveals a particular period and location. Imagine a set-up that is set during Reconstruction in the American Southwest. You can get your kids to research this period and then add period details that will really add to the enjoyment and historical accuracy of your toydesign. They might read about the telegraph and add telegraph lines next to the tracks. A ghost town that failed to capitalize on the railroad because it didn’t get a stop might be shown tantalizingly close to the track. Maybe even have a few washed out prospectors still panning for gold in the nearby stream.
Spice up the tired old school project by swapping in a toy train setup instead:
You might also manage to talk your kid’s history teacher into allowing him to bring in a historic model locomotive set-up in place of the usual boring diorama. You will need to lay it out on a portable table and possibly help your youngster bring it in on the day that it is due, but the combination of historic detail and the fascination that such trains inspire simply on their own are likely to really go over well. Just imagine, for example, adding a toy locomotive display to your kid’s essay on Jesse James. As your period specific train rounds the curve there are Jesse and his whole gang just waiting to attack and continue his wrong headed crusade. It’s sure to be a coup!
Visit a model train Museum:
If you’re anywhere in the American West you are never far from historical train sites and museums where toy trains are often featured. If your local historic train site doesn’t have model locomotives consider suggesting they incorporate some to the curator or manager of the site. In some places, model locomotive clubs often put on model train events.. Just google it and you are sure to come into contact with your local toy train society.
Whatever you decide to do, you will find that model locomotives are a door to the past even if you don’t explicitly use them as such. Even if you just do model training without even considering the educational possibilities you will inevitably foster a greater sense of historical knowledge simply by handling these little mechanical doorways to the past.
Here is more information on Model Steam Trains. Here is a website with a free mini-course dedicated to Model Trains.