KALONA

Every year, the Kalona Historical Village hosts two sessions of a week-long day camp for kids where hands-on activities take center stage. This year’s camp sessions took place June 17-20 and 24-27.

When I arrived at the Visitor’s Center on Monday, June 24, I found groups of kids busy creating at the round tables where meetings and social events are often held. I asked a group of young girls about the rocks they were painting as Heather Kemp read a story to another group of kids. On the other side of the room, Grace Tully was winding cards of yarn, and older kids were absorbed in weaving on the looms.

One young lady told me it was her third year attending the summer camp. I asked her what aspect of camp she enjoyed the most.

“Weaving,” she replied.

I let the kids get back to work and asked Heather Woodin about how the camp was going so far this year. Unlike Kemp and Tully, I hadn’t met Woodin before, as this is her first year as a camp leader. I was told that she was leading some new activities not done at camp before.

She showed me giant quilt blocks that campers had painted the previous week, which will be on display during Fall Festival in September. Science experiments involving Skittles candies and a scavenger hunt in the Wahl Museum would be up next for the kids I had just observed.

“We’re making journals like this,” Woodin said, holding up an example of another craft the campers would create. She leafed through, showing me the prompts the kids could write to and ways the journal could be embellished with other papers and materials.

“It’s simple enough they can add to it when they get home,” she explained.

I was fascinated by the journal, by how it was both simple and personal.

“I like projects like this because there’s really no right or wrong way to do it,” Woodin said. “Everyone is different, and they can do whatever they want.”

The prompts given with the journal encourage kids to reflect on how they are unique, how they can help their neighbors, and how they experience stress in their lives. The point is to “kind of tie the Village’s historical setting to their lives today,” and to give kids a safe and fun place to write about their own concerns, she says.

I really wanted to make one of these journals. I was surprised when Woodin told me that I could, and that I wouldn’t have to crash the camp to do so.

Woodin is a huge fan of crafts. She has brought her love, creativity, and skill to those at a church in Iowa City and to her own friends and family. She has amassed a stockpile of materials. She needed another outlet for her gift and passion, and that is how she ended up working with the Kalona Historical Village.

But two weeks of summer camp for kids wasn’t enough. She also started a new program called Make it at the Museum; beginning with a craft on Friday, July 12, roughly each month Woodin will lead a craft, event, or workshop at the Historical Village.

Some of the events are for kids, but others are for adults. On Saturday, January 18, 2025, I will get my chance to make an “Artsy Journal.”

I’ve marked my calendar.

“I’m having a great time at camp,” Woodin remarked before heading off to lead the Skittles experiments. “I [am] just really impressed with the kids and their level of focus and ability.”

The creative portion of my brain now lit up, I meandered over to Tully and asked, “Are you ever going to have an adult camp where we can learn to weave?”

“I am working on a curriculum for an adult winter camp,” she said. “Four days, weaving, sewing, knitting, embroidery – and sewing is both hand sewing as well as machine sewing.”

I swooned.

“It would be two days of instruction, and then the last two days, you get to work on what you want,” she explained.

As plans are still in the works, dates and details are not yet final, but now I have something else to look forward to.

So do you, my fellow craft-loving readers.

For more information about Kalona Historical Village programing, including Summer Camp and Make it at the Museum activities, visit kalonaiowa.org or call 319-656-3232.