Old Bethpage Village Restoration is one of the metropolitan area’s truly unique properties, allowing visitors to travel back in time for a day and experience life inside a recreated 19th-century Long Island village, complete with dozens of historic homes and townspeople in period costume. This summer, youngsters ages nine through 12 can immerse themselves in that environment for a week through OBVR’s Junior Apprentice Program, announced Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano.

OBVR will begin taking names and addresses from parents interested in the popular program in February 2010. There are four one-week sessions the weeks of June 28, July 12, July 26 and August 9, from 10 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. The fee for each session is $230 per child and participants are limited to one session only.

The Junior Apprentice Program provides a crash course for youngsters in how their peers lived on Long Island during the 19th century, when the area was still defined by the rhythms of rural life. As part of the camp program, youngsters wear clothing from the period (including Civil War outfits) and engage in the daily routines of 19th-century life, such as farming and other physical chores, crafts, education, and games and other diversions.

“Although some of the children initially find life without contemporary conveniences to be a bit of a challenge, they ultimately find the experience enriching and certainly gain an appreciation for the lives led by an earlier generation of Long Islanders,” says Jim McKenna, OBVR site director.

For more information and to receive an application, call Old Bethpage Village Restoration at 516-572-8401. Old Bethpage Village Restoration, which opens for the 2010 season in April 1, provides visitors with a unique and wonderful opportunity to step back in time and experience life in a recreated mid-19th-century American village set on more than 200 acres. It is located on Round Swamp Road in Old Bethpage.

For more information about the Parks Department, visit www.nassaucountyny.gov/parks or call 516-572-0200.