1. Build a fence.

2. Hilarity ensues.

To not have some sort of fence painting (real or not) would be a crime.

Painting the fence is definitely the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe let them get more artistic than a white wash though.

Are there any caves nearby to explore?

Whitewashing! Trick them into it!

How about attending one's own funeral?

Heh, answer Tom Sawyer's Relationship AskMe.

Kissing Girls Named Becky!

Trading stuff for yellow tickets.

rainbaby for the win

How about a cooking demonstration? Menu items could include:

corn pone
fat back
hard tack
fat pone
corn tack
tack back

tack back

Oops. That should read "back tack", of course.

This is so weird, but what stuck with me from reading those books when I was like 12 or 13 was this one short little scene where Tom (or Huck, whatever) was dressed up in women's clothes. I don't remember why. Anyway, he's sitting in some parlor and this woman tosses him a button and he clapped his legs together to catch it in his lap. This gave him away as a guy, because, you see, women would spread their legs to catch it in their voluminous skirts. My 1970s 12 year old self was totally baffled by this and I tried it with a couple of equally baffled friends and found out that we jeans wearing middle school girls always clapped our legs together to catch something. So you could reenact the button scene along with dress up and talk about gender roles and how costume influences your daily life - how different your life would be if you had hoopskirts on every single day.

If budget truly isn't a concern, you could make a plaster "cave" for the kids to explore. Esp. if the kids are small; the cave need not be huge in that case. Big enough for it to be dark inside (bonus points for using electric "candles" for illumination).

mygothlaundry: That scene is from Huckleberry Finn, and it's always stuck in my mind, as well. (Huck's on the run with Jim, and he decides to don a disguise and drop in on one of the locals of a neighboring town to get the latest news about his own faked death and the search for the escaped slave.) I always wondered about the validity of those little gender tests that the woman administers. If I remember correctly, another one involves threading a needle. I can't remember if boys are supposed to bring the thread to the needle or the needle to the thread, but it always makes me self-conscious whenever I have to do a bit of sewing: Lordy, I sure hope I'm not doing this the girly way!

Stash a box of gold coin chocolates.

Oddly, that skirt scene from Huck Finn captured my imagination, as well - I can remember practicing it too.

Thanks for the fun ideas. I do think we'll do some sort of fence thing - it's winter, so we can't do it outside, but we may buy pickets and have everyone paint/design their own.

corn pone
fat back
hard tack
fat pone
corn tack
tack back

That's wack.