Flashlight Toy

There is something about going deep inside the earth that is mysterious and other-worldly. My children have always enjoyed caves and mines. As we entered the cold depths of the earth, we encountered strange formations like stalactites and stalagmites, formed by the dripping of water. Columns rose from the floor to the ceiling, and waves of white limestone covered spectacular-looking walls. When all the lights are turned off, there was such complete darkness that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

When I was a little girl, I used to crawl around in caves in Guatemala and in other places we visited, going down different paths and getting “lost.” Thankfully the caves weren’t very extensive, and I always found my way back to my family. But I remember the caves being like a cold labyrinth, where I sometimes had to crawl on my belly to get to the next room. This is called spelunking.

One time my husband’s parents came with us to a gold mine and bought the children hard hats with a light on the front. The boys loved their flashlight helmets, and they used those helmets later in the backyard playing tag at night, and even in their bedroom, where they pretended they were in a cave. When walking through a real mine, we saw antique implements of people who used to work down there. The children saw a train car on some train tracks, which fired up their imaginations to later write a story about an adventure in a mine.

Tour guides give lots of interesting information about each cave or mine. Many mines will also have “panning for gold,” where you sift through sand and pebbles to find fool’s gold, or pyrite. You can even do this activity at home. Put sand and water in a short bin. Then get some sifters, which you can find at toy stores, especially in the summer, around the sand castle buckets. Then get a bag of fool’s gold and sprinkle it in the water without your kids noticing. Then have them pan for gold at home.

If you can’t experience a real cave, maybe you can make a blanket fort and explore it with flashlights. Get some picture books out of the library about caves, and read those books with a flashlight in your “cave.” Some libraries might even have educational DVD’s about caves or mines.

In our family’s trip across to Tennessee, we found a cave with a lake. We actually rode in a boat on a lake in a cave. It was so cool. The fish were all albinos (a white or pale color) because there was no sunlight for pigmentation. Your children will probably also notice that there is nothing green growing in the cave, and that’s because sunlight is necessary for photosynthesis.

I highly recommend going to at least one cave or mine while your children are elementary-aged. It will open their minds to new experiences and help them to have a broader view of the world. It will also create a sense of wonder that might trigger other creative activities.

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