ACM InterActivity 2015

My fellow cMoe directors and I were lucky enough to attend the Association of Children's Museums annual conference this past week. In its own words, "ACM is the only organization representing museums and professionals dedicated to early childhood play, the starting point in the continuum of lifelong learning." So, their annual conference is THE place to be! I learned a ton at the conference and made some great connections. Here are some of my biggest personal takeaways stripped down to the most basic ideas (i.e., the notes I highlighted in my handy little ACM note-taking book!)

Maker Spaces and Materials

• Materials matter! Great maker spaces are about low-tech materials with thoughtful facilitation. (Reid Bingham, NY Hall of Science)
•  The four best block sets (per Marcos Stafne of Montshire Museum of Science) are Kapla (check), MagnaTiles (check), Unit Blocks (check), and Imagination Playground (sigh...) 
• Blocks shouldn't be relegated to a corner in an early childhood area! (Guilty!) 
• Paul Orselli (Paul Orselli Workshop) hates fake food and fake grocery stores. But, he gave us some great ideas on how to turn the tired concept into something rather innovative and interactive. 
• Children should the creators of Maker Spaces - not the consumers (Janella Watson, NY Hall of Science)

  

  "NySci" - just beautiful!

Technology

• Transmedia stories give kids opportunities to expand the original world and deepen the characters. (Think "Star Wars.") How can we bring these opportunities to our museums? (Erin Reilly, USC) (Um, super cute website, btw.)
• We can use existing technology to "lengthen, deepen, and extend learning." See: www.21-tech.org 
• The most exciting new technology (IMO) allows kids to manipulate "real-life" objects that connect to a digital experience. (See: Winklebeans.)
• How can we use technology give our kids as much freedom to add to the museum experience as the original curators? 

Winklebeans

 Learning through Play

• Your staff can be your greatest resource when it comes to communicating your museum's mission.
• To make learning through play visible, you need to share your museum's philosophy! Why do we spend so much time creating learning plans and educational philosophies and then hide them away from the world? (Guilty!) It's not a top-down process: ask your patrons and co-workers - what does learning mean to them?
• Entrust kids with something important - it gives them a sense of authenticity and responsibility. (E.g., giving them a pick to let them play an instrument, like the instrument from the Take Me There China exhibit in Indy.)

Community Partnerships 

Family Passport to Play - a successful community partnership!

• Businesses and other organizations want to collaborate with museums because we can offer them things they can't get on their own: the reach, the chance the meet their mission, added value to their clients, a "measuring stick", the chance to communicate an idea with the backing of people who aren't just in it for a profit, and the opportunity to connect with other partners.
• Many hands make light work in a true collaboration.(See: Family Passport to Play)
• Good collaborations save time. 
• When it comes to finding community partners, consider who might share demographics with you - then, think outside the box! 
• People LOVED our Destination Discovery camp idea. They thought it was a great example of a partnership that is working well. (I can't take any credit for it, since it was in place before my time, but I agree!) 

Volunteers

• The smartest way to think of volunteers is by dividing them into generations. Different generations want different things from their experiences. 
• Don't be afraid to say NO if someone's experiences won't fit with your needs. That doesn't make them a bad volunteers; it just means they're not right for your needs. 
• We need more adult volunteers, but have a strong core of student volunteers. Some museums have the opposite. Always nice to see a success mixed with a challenge :) 

Wow, that's ... a lot. Keep in mind, that's just what I highlighted. 

Spring Break Camp at cMoe

We had SUCH a busy and fun week at cMoe over Spring Break! We once again took part in "Destination Discovery Camp" - we partner with four other local non-profits (Angel Mounds, Evansville Musuem of Art, History and Science, Mesker Park Zoo, and Wesselman Woods) to offer a camp that takes kids to a different destination every day. On Tuesday and Wednesday, cMoe hosted two different groups of kids. We had a blast with different art and science activities. I took a LOT of pictures, but mostly on Wednesday. So if your kid attended camp but isn't in any of these pictures, it would be a safe bet that he or she was in Tuesday's group. 

Here are some of our activities:

Destruction Art

Step 1: Draw a picture with crayons on heavy card stock.

Step 2: Pretend like you can't stand the sight of it anymore, and crumple it up!

 
 Step 3: Cover the drawing in WASHABLE paint. (The washable part is quite important.)

Those hands are moving fast.

Typically, the darker the paint, the better the results.

 

 Step 3: Dunk the paper in water! Carefully rub the paint away. (You can't be too rough, or the paper will fall apart.)

Step 4: Wait for the papers to dry, and admire the beautiful results. As you can see, the paint seeps into the cracks, but washes away on most of the other parts of the painting.

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Gem Magnets

This was probably my favorite activity. It's super simple and the kids made some amazing magnets. The directions are simple. Find (very) small pictures from magazines. (You could also draw your own pictures.) Lay a clear glass art bead (or what I like to call a"squashed marble") over the top of the picture to make sure it looks okay. Put a dot of glue on the paper and press your art bead onto it, flat-side down. When it dries, trim around it with scissors, and glue a magnet to the back. That's it! You could also turn these into story stones, letter-learning tools, or jewelry. I want to make a thousand of them! 

Ice Tie-Dye

Omigosh; BEST. TIE-DYE. EVER. This is seriously my favorite tie-dye I've done, and I've done a lot of tie-dye in my day. The results of this one were SO colorful - although I did issue a strong warning to parents not to wash the tie-dye with any other garments for at least, oh, a thousand washes. There's not a ton of time to rinse when you're creating 20-30 at once. But look how pretty!

This was a rare Pinterest win - here's what we did. The kids scrunched up the tie-dye like normal. They had done a different kind of tie-dye at Angel Mounds, so they knew some fancy tying methods I wouldn't have been able to teach them. Cool! After that, Ben and I stationed ourselves by some window screens laid on top of baby pools, buckets, etc. We handed kids tiny spoonfuls of powdered fabric dye, and they sprinkled it over their bandanas. When everyone was done sprinkling, we dumped ice on top of them all. 

As the ice melts, it mixes with the dye and seeps into the fabric. It's much more potent than when you dissolve it in water. (Hence, the warnings about not machine-washing.) 

Oil & Water

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Like, how could this really keep kids entertained. But oh, it does. And I would HIGHLY recommend doing this outside if you're able. Sadly, we weren't, and my jeans will never be the same. Oh well, just a minor causality of working at cMoe. 

Step 1, give kids some colored water, wax paper, and droppers (or straws) and let them explore water cohesion and tension. They did this for probably a half hour, and only stopped because we ran out of room on the wax paper. 

Step 2, give them pans of vegetable oil and colored vinegar, and let them go to town. (By the time I shot these, they had progressed from dripping in water and vinegar to ... dumping it in. But it's okay - all in the name of experimentation!) 

Step 3, which was way to frenetic for me to take pictures of - after they have added vinegar to their oil, go around the room with "Magic" Powder - (psst: it's baking soda.) Sprinkle some in their oil pans and watch as it reacts. The kids FLIPPED OUT. They loved it so much. They guessed right away that the "magic" substance was baking powder, but it didn't stop them from pretending that the creations were potions and that they were witches, or from screaming, "It's going to explode!" every time I added more. 

Museum Time

One of the best things about camp is getting to play in the museum. 

Coordinator Ben painting Abby's face like "Hello Kitty."

There was a lot of action in this play. Flash photography was graciously permitted.

Giant Bubbles

It's pretty safe to say that Giant Bubbles was the favorite activity of many campers. The recipe is incredible simple: 2 cups liquid dish soap, 1 cup corn syrup, and 6 cups water. That's it. Then, we cut the bottom of off water bottles and used them as bubble blowers. 

The kids got the hang of it pretty quickly.

It was only Play Guide Becky's second day on the job! She just HAD to come outside and have the campers teach her about bubbles!

Do you know how difficult it is to properly photograph a bubble? But I did it, and captured its elusive shadow!

That's it! Looking at all these pics again makes me exhausted, but happy! We had an awesome two days with these guys, and hope they had half as much fun as we did!

Edible Art

Edible Art

We celebrated Valentine's Day a week early at cMoe with "Be Mine Valentine." The theme this year was "We Heart Art." The day was filled with fun art projects such as DIY Valentines, a collaborative art project, and gel painting. My personal favorite activity was "edible art." This is a super fun and relatively easy activity that you can try at home! Check it out:

Supplies and Prep 

The day before, we iced some graham crackers with GFS cinnamon bun icing. Graham crackers made a nice sized canvas on which to paint. The icing is the same type  we use for our Gingerbread Workshop, because it gets very hard when dry and serves as a great "mortar." In this case, when dry, it makes a nice smooth, white canvas. 

I experimented with several different types of "paint." There are many recipes online for edible paint. One suggestion was gel icing mixed with vanilla extract. This is what you see in the first picture. It worked well, but is a more expensive option since gel icing containers are so small. Ultimately, I ended up mixing the same GFS icing with food coloring and water (to thin it out), and it really worked great! We purposely only gave the kids red, yellow and blue to serve as a lesson about primary colors and color mixing. 

Finally, you will need a tablecloth, paper plates, and new paintbrushes. 

The Process

(This is actually my cousin Norah above, captured in the moment just before working her artistic magic!) 

We went around the room and gave each kid a small squirt of each color. (As you can see, I had the icing in bags. If I did it over again, I'd use squeeze bottles - way less messy!) We went over how to mix each primary color to create secondary colors, and encouraged them to mix colors on their paper plates. 

Note: It is perfectly fine to eat the painting while it is still wet, but if you want to wait for it to dry, it takes about an hour. 

The Finished Products

As usual, the kids' results were beautiful and reminded me again how I am always amazed and impressed with children's artistic abilities and visions! Check them out! 

 

 More Ideas

Of course I had to try the project, too! The example on the left is my Jackson Pollack-inspired work, which I then turned long-ways and propped up to see how the colors would run and mix together. Can you imagine what a messy kid I was?? You could definitely use this project to teach various techniques of specific artists - maybe use toothpicks to discuss pointillism? A few of the kids' pieces were very Mondrian-esque, too. It's probably pretty obvious that I just LOVED this project and will probably repeat it for camp!

Thanks for stopping by!

Pop-Up: Planes and Parachutes!

Did you know cMoe has pop-up activities twice a day, every day?! Today's pop-up was "Planes and Parachutes: Exploring Aviation." Our guests made paper helicopters and circular bi-planes. We had so much fun making our planes that we even ran out of time to do parachutes! That just gives us more to look forward to next time. Check it out, and be sure to check out our pop-up on your next visit to cMoe! 

Education coordinator Ben explains how air currents and lift help airplanes fly.  

 Testing our paper helicopters by launching them off the balcony. Making the hula hoop target was really difficult! All the helicopters worked well, though!

Circular bi-planes - awesome! 

  

Testing the bi-planes in the lobby with Play Guide McKenzie. 

Paint a Snowy Scene

Brrrrr! It is cold out there! Stay indoors and keep warm while celebrating the chilly weather with this fun, snowy scene.

You will need:
Watercolors and paintbrush

White crayon

Thick white paper

Water for rinsing

Paper towels

Fine-tipped marker (optional) 

Sometimes it's nice to have a little inspiration for art projects. Since it's not actually snowing here, I looked online for painted snowy scenes. I was inspired by this picture of a watercolor painting by Janice Trane Jones. (You can check out more of her work at her Etsy shop.)

1. Watercolors work because the paper absorbs the color after the water has dried. They are fun to work with because they are easy to mix together on paper as you work. 

If you color on your paper with a crayon first, the paper cannot absorb it. You can create a snow effect by coloring white where you want “snow” to appear in your drawing. 

Make snow on the ground, snowflakes in the air – whatever you would like! 

2. It will be hard to see where you have drawn “snow” – one trick is to hold your paper up to sunlight. You should be able to faintly see where you have colored. 

3. When you are finished coloring snow, paint a scene with watercolors. It is easiest to paint a sky first, let it dry, then paint any other elements you want, like trees, houses, etc. 

4. If you would like, use a paper towel to blot the watercolors and help them dry.

5. When my watercolors were dry, I went back and added details and outlining with a fine-tipped Sharpie. You may like the look of just watercolors, though. The finished look is up to you, the artist! However, I would reccomend always signing your work and adding the year. You can see my signature in the bottom left-hand corner. 

Happy "Snowing"!