Visitors to Loveland’s North Lake Park this week might get a blast from the past. Children dressed in old-timey clothing walking single file into a one room schoolhouse? It’s not “Back to the Future III,” it’s the annual Lone Tree Summer Camp, a living history experience for students between second and ninth grades where they spend a week learning the three Rs, as well as an immersive lesson in the past. “I think it’s so important to instill a love of history into these kids,” said Teri Johnson, who has been operating the summer camp since the mid 1980s.
“They’re able to do it in a fun way that they enjoy. And getting to do living history really embeds it in their brains, what life was like.” Students study from period appropriate materials like the McGuffey’s Eclectic Reader, play period appropriate games like The Shepherd and the Wolf, and learn period appropriate skills like butter churning, making homemade ice cream, rug weaving and writing using an inkwell.
“It’s awesome,” said Kaia Cousino, a 10 year old who is attending the camp this week. “It’s different and I’m not used to it, but it’s a lot of fun.” Many of the students, including Cousino, came dressed in clothing that wouldn’t look out of place in a schoolhouse in 1890, and other than a handful of reminders, a Hydroflask water bottle sitting next to a desk, a pair of tennis shoes peeking out from beneath the hem of a prairie dress, perhaps a stray thumbtack or two, it’s e.