June 2007   Go to Calendar Home Page –  View Previous Out and About Articles 
 

If there’s ever a place to draw you in to the days of the American West, the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville fits the bill. It’s loaded with western and cowboy paintings, photographs, movie posters and sculptures throughout two floors.

For preschoolers, it’s all about the hands-on area on the museum’s first level called Sagebrush Ranch. It’s a darkened hideaway, complete with a stagecoach simulating the rocking motion on the journey west. The back of a chuck wagon holds the utensils used in the old days, and kids can even ring the dinner bell. Three-dimensional puzzles, creating pottery designs using magnets and other activities are set in white-picket corrals.

Games like checkers and a drawing area where they learn to sketch a horse or buffalo keeps older kids happy, too. School-aged children can learn interesting facts in the museum’s Presidents Gallery. (Did you know one of our presidents weighed only 100 pounds?)

“We are learning about Indian culture and the western movement,” says Acworth mom Becky Dickerson, who home schools her two children. “Our family is driving to California this summer and we will be following the Pony Express Line. I want them to be able to look out the window and remember what we saw at the museum and appreciate what they see.”

It may be all play in the Sagebrush Ranch, but it’s the rowdiest place around for a cowboy or cowgirl wannabe.

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