Serving Up a New AmeriCorps Team

The Museum was excited to welcome a new AmeriCorps team – our 20th! – in September to begin a year of playful, powerful service.  The team extends the Museum's reach by inspiring inner-city children with after-school math and science programs at the Boys & Girls Club and Highlander Charter School, facilitating play-based problem-solving activities for Children’s Friend Head Start preschoolers, engaging Museum visitors in play and exploration, and recruiting and supporting Museum volunteers.

The 11 MuseumCorps members bring with them a wide range of skills and experience.  Cara was a mentor at New Urban Arts in Providence, and Elizabeth interned as an aquarist at Save the Bay.  Jillian has been at the Museum for year already as a work-study student.  Leigh was captain of her swim team at Brown University, and Meg has a degree in Geology.  Taylor is experienced in the Japanese practice of gyotaku, or fish printing, and Filipa is an aspiring cartoonist/animator.  Hayley taught English to children in France, and Monica is majoring in Spanish.  Rachel was an AmeriCorps member with City Year Boston, and Anna spent a year of service at a homeless shelter in New Jersey. 

Each team member is passionate about inspiring children’s lifetime love of learning.  “More than anything,” says Rachel, “I'm excited to be in a program that encourages kids to find the fun in learning!”  The team is also focused on giving back to the community through national service.  Leigh has heard many stories about the positive impact AmeriCorps has had on communities and she says, “I am excited that I now get to be a part of it through Providence Children's Museum!”

The new AmeriCorps team planned a frightfully fun Boo Bash celebration.

Welcome, team!

The Museum’s AmeriCorps program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and Serve Rhode Island, with support from additional sponsors for the Head Start and Learning Club programs.

Persistence: A Head Start Story

We’re reflecting on the incredible contributions of our AmeriCorps Museum Educators over the 2013-2014 service year. This story was shared by Amanda Howard, a member of the team that served 1,000 Head Start preschoolers in 58 classrooms in greater Providence with fun-filled Museum explorations and a year-long series of imaginative activities to help them understand and value diversity. 

We bring each of our Head Start groups on Museum field trips. During one field trip, I was able to work with and observe a 3-year-old boy playing with the ramps and balls in Play Power. The boy dropped a ball into a magnet ramp that was already set up and watched it glide down until it fell through a space in one of the pieces. The boy was disappointed that his ball did not complete the entire ramp and proceeded to move the pieces around and pick new ones until it worked. On a few different tries I asked him questions like, “Why do you think the ball didn’t complete your ramp?” and “How can change the ramp to make sure the ball doesn’t fall off?” When he was finally able to get the ball to go all the way down, he was so proud of himself. He showed everyone how great his ramp was and everyone thought it was very cool.

Later, his teacher told me that he had never spent so long working on something and usually gives up very easily when things do not work out for him. I’m glad that I was able to help him stay focused and not give up on his task even though it took him a while to work it out.

Saluting a Year of Service to Kids in Need

The Museum has been an AmeriCorps site since 1997 and has hired and trained AmeriCorps members to bring play-based literacy, science and math activities to more than 20,000 children in under-resourced neighborhoods. 

This week, we’re celebrating the graduation of the Museum’s 18th remarkable AmeriCorps team and their 22,000 hours of dedicated service over the past year.  This group of 12 full-time members and four additional summer members extended the Museum’s reach to children and families in underserved communities in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls and had a tremendous impact. There’s so much the Museum simply could not do without the dedication and passion of these committed and talented individuals.

The Museum’s 2012-13 AmeriCorps team:

• Facilitated imaginative activities that celebrate diversity to help improve school readiness for 1,000 Head Start preschoolers in 58 classrooms
• Engaged over 500 elementary school-aged children with inspiring play-based math and science activities during after-school and summer Learning Clubs at Boys & Girls Club of Providence, Highlander Charter School and other community-based programs
• Welcomed 1,600 low-income children and family members to free Museum family nights, where they received complimentary year-long admission passes
• Recruited and trained dozens of Museum volunteers
• Engaged Museum visitors in hands-on exhibits and developed interactive public programs
• And much more!

Some of the tributes shared during their graduation ceremony:

“One-thousand Head Start children experienced your creativity, your passion and your enthusiasm – please know you have made a difference in the life of a child.”

– Ellen Morey, Children’s Friend

“Thank you to this wonderful group of talented individuals. You each brought your passions, talents and skills to this incredible institution.”

– Marisa Petreccia, Serve RI

“When the Museum first moved from Pawtucket to Providence, my dream was that our audience would be as diverse and varied as our community. You are the hands and voices and hearts and minds that bring our message to the community, and we do attract a richly diverse audience because of you. I’m very grateful for that.”

– Janice O’Donnell, Museum director

“Thank you for keeping the Museum’s mission at heart all the time and for putting children first.”

– Olga Lerner, Museum Early Childhood Learning Programs Developer

Our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Ali, Alison, Amanda, Ashley, David, Faina, Hannah, Jack, Joey, Meg, Samantha, Sarah L., Sarah S., Tracey, Vanessa and Zoe!

The Museum’s AmeriCorps program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and Serve Rhode Island, with support from additional sponsors for the Head Start and Learning Club programs.

Great News! Museum Receives AmeriCorps Funding

On Wednesday, the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) announced $205 million in grants to fund 288 AmeriCorps programs and the service of 43,000 AmeriCorps members nationally. Providence Children’s Museum is one of only two organizations in Rhode Island to receive full federal funding in the highly competitive 2014 grant cycle.

The Museum’s program was awarded a 3-year grant and will receive $159,600 annually from the CNCS for 12 full-time AmeriCorps members.  The Museum has been an AmeriCorps site since 1997 and has served over 20,000 children through innovative outreach to inner-city schools, community centers and Head Start programs.  With this funding, the Museum will welcome its 19th AmeriCorps team in the fall.

Designed to help close the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children, the Museum’s AmeriCorps program provides stimulating interactive learning experiences not available to most low-income children.  Under the guidance of Museum education staff, AmeriCorps members work to inspire a lifetime love of learning, providing enriched learning experiences for all greater Providence Head Start preschoolers and conducting Learning Clubs for inner-city school-age children.

The Museum’s 2014-15 AmeriCorps members will:

• Implement engaging play-based classroom activities that encourage problem solving in all 56 Children’s Friend Head Start classrooms, serving 1,000 3- to 5-year-olds and supporting Head Start’s goal of improving school readiness.

• Guide Head Start children on classroom field trips to the Museum for hands-on play and learning.

• Deliver Learning Clubs – hands-on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) enrichment activities with a focus on math – for 200 low-income 2nd-4th graders in after-school and summer programs at the Boys & Girls Club and Highlander Charter School in South Providence.

• Support recess by facilitating play-based activities at Highlander Charter School and Mary E. Fogarty Elementary School.

• Welcome all Head Start and Learning Club program participants and their families to Family Nights at the Children’s Museum, where they receive free year-long Museum passes.

“Bringing hands-on fun and learning to thousands of disadvantaged kids each year, AmeriCorps greatly increases the Museum’s capacity to serve families who need it most,” said Museum Executive Director Janice O’Donnell.

Click here for more information about the Museum’s AmeriCorps program. 

Federal funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service must be matched by private support.  The Museum’s AmeriCorps program is also supported by Serve Rhode Island and currently receives additional funding from Amgen Foundation; Bristol County Savings Charitable Foundation; The John Clarke Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Co-Trustee; Cox Charities of New England Fund; CVS Caremark Charity Classic; Frank B. Hazard General Charity Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; Sovereign Bank Foundation; Textron Charitable Trust; UnitedHealthcare of New England; and donors to the Museum's Annual Campaign.

A Head Start Story

This story was shared by AmeriCorps Museum Educator Jack Read.

The Head Start team visits each classroom before their Museum field trip and reads a book we created that describes the many fun things the children will do at the Museum.  There is a moment in the book where Nori, the Museum dragon, bellows.  This is a big word for 3- to 5-year-olds, so we always ask if they know what it means; we take the opportunity to teach literacy when we can.  We describe it as speaking with a loud, deep voice and ask them to say the word with us that way.  “Belllllowwwwwwwwww!” we say in unison.

A week after we visited Carter Head Start Center, it was time for the children to come play in the Museum, some for the very first time.  I was in Play Power with my group when a 4-year-old girl climbed onto the platform under the dome and said “Hellooooo!  I just bellowed, like in the book!”  I was so happy to see that something we taught them had stuck like that!

Giving Kids a Head Start

Since 1997, the Museum has served nearly 20,000 preschoolers in greater Providence Head Start – a critical part of our AmeriCorps-based outreach to children and families in need. 

Head Start is a federally funded program, created to combat poverty, that provides low-income children ages 3 to 5 and their families with a range of comprehensive services to support school readiness, health and emotional growth.  The Museum’s long-standing and successful collaboration with greater Providence Head Start (administered by Children’s Friend since 2009) was developed in response to a need expressed by Head Start administrators: for kids to have rich educational experiences in a hands-on environment.

A team of AmeriCorps members, led by our early childhood learning specialist, serves 1,000 Head Start children in more than 50 classrooms each year.  They design and deliver developmentally appropriate, hands-on activities that seek to strengthen children’s social and emotional development – their curiosity, initiative, social skills and sense of their own competence as learners.  Classroom activities vary, depending upon the needs and interests of Head Start teachers and administrators.

For the past few years, AmeriCorps members have presented activities that align with a Children’s Friend initiative to celebrate diversity.  In one imaginative lesson, members read a story about skin color and followed it with a color mixing activity, during which children enthusiastically created and named their own new paint shades.  By presenting engaging activities that support school readiness and early literacy, the team simultaneously creates a memorable learning experience for children and models effective techniques for teachers; they also provide teachers with a packet of activities to build on Museum lessons.  In addition, Museum educators lead trainings for all Head Start teachers and teacher aides.  Teachers come away with an assortment of new ideas, methods and materials, which they continue to use in their classrooms year after year.

After visiting each classroom, AmeriCorps members guide children’s joyful exploration during Museum field trips.  This is the first experience at a children’s museum for many, but it won’t be their last.  The Museum also hosts family nights for all of the Head Start centers – festive evenings for children and their families to play, learn and have dinner together. Wednesday was our third family night of the season, and we welcomed a remarkable 440 children and families from Providence’s Dean, Varone and Carter Head Start centers! Family night attendees receive free year-long Museum admission passes, enabling them to visit together as often as they’d like.  Family support is vital to young children’s development and learning, and family nights and free admission ensure important family engagement.

We are committed to being accessible to all children and families.  Strong, mutually respectful partnerships like the one with Children’s Friend Head Start make it possible to reach families who need the Museum most.

“I am so impressed with the Museum’s commitment to
vulnerable kids living in the urban core.”

– Aimee Mitchell, Director of Head Start, Children’s Friend

The Museum's AmeriCorps program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and Serve Rhode Island, with support from additional Head Start program sponsors.

Committed Service to Kids in Need

This month, we celebrated the graduation of the Museum’s 17th (!) AmeriCorps team and their 22,500 hours of dedicated service over the past year. This group of 12 full-time members and four additional summer members extended the Museum’s reach to children and families in underserved communities throughout and around Providence and had a tremendous impact. There’s so much the Museum simply could not do without the hard work and passion of these committed and talented individuals.

Did you know that the Museum’s 2012-13 AmeriCorps team:

• Facilitated imaginative activities that celebrate diversity to help improve school readiness for more than 1,000 Head Start preschoolers
• Engaged over 500 elementary school-aged children with inspiring play-based math and science activities during after-school and summer Learning Clubs
• Welcomed more than 1,300 low-income children and family members to free Museum family nights, where they received complimentary year-long admission passes
• Recruited and trained dozens of Museum volunteers
• Engaged Museum visitors in hands-on exhibits and developed interactive public programs
• And much more!

Some heartfelt tributes shared during their graduation ceremony:

“[These children are] lucky if they meet someone who challenges their hearts and brains and changes the way they think. You might be that person.”

– Mary Ellen O'Mahony, Children’s Friend

 “Thank you for dedicating a year of your lives. It’s the best example of communities and people coming together to make the world a better places… leveling the playing field for these children and giving them the opportunities they deserve.”

– Marisa Petreccia, Serve Rhode Island

“We could not reach these children in these numbers and with this depth without you…What would be the point of having a children’s museum if we couldn’t reach the children who need us most?”

– Janice O’Donnell, Museum director

Our sincere thanks and congratulations to Alex, Alexandra, Amanda, Ashley, Bridget, Dylan, Francesca, Jack, Kaylor, Kayshia, Leah, Mandy, Megan, Ryan, Samantha and Sarah!

The Museum’s AmeriCorps program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and Serve Rhode Island with additional support from Bristol County Savings Charitable Foundation; The John Clarke Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Co-Trustee; CVS Caremark Charity Classic; Frank B. Hazard General Charity Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; Harry M., Miriam C. & William C. Horton Fund, Bank of America, Co-Trustee; Museum Annual Campaign Donors; Sovereign Bank Foundation; Textron Charitable Trust; and UnitedHealthcare of New England.

Friendship: A Head Start Story

We’re reflecting on the incredible contributions of our 2012-13 AmeriCorps Museum Educators as their service year comes to a close this week. This story was shared by Amanda Nico and Leah Taradash, members of the team that served 1,000 Head Start preschoolers in 58 classrooms in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls with fun-filled Museum explorations and a year-long series of imaginative activities to help them understand and value diversity.

Amanda: In Head Start classroom activities, we focused on how friends can be both similar to and different from one another and that is okay. We read the book Alex and Lulu: Two of a Kind by Lorena Siminovich, which tells the story of a dog and cat who are friends but like to play different things, then we talked with the children about some of their differences and similarities.

Leah: During the next activity of our friendship curriculum, children created a book of what they like to do with their friends. Every child illustrated a page and we recorded their words under their pictures, then put them all into a binder and read the book to the class.

The Head Start team was very excited about this activity's potential but we never could have predicted the inspiring results reflected in the children's words and pictures. Their friendship stories were all different; some children chose specific things they liked playing with their friends, like basketball and drawing, while others thought about ideas like the leaves changing red in the fall or two friends getting into a fight and needing to say they're sorry. No matter what the story, it was clear that every child put a great deal of thought into how to represent themselves through their words and drawings.

Amanda: In one class, a child named Cecilia drew and we recorded her story about her friend: "Lyla was screaming too loudly and I was painting flowers and being an artist and being different. Lyla was white and Cecilia was brown and then we were sleeping and that is the end." Her teacher marveled at how she really listened and understood the message of the story we read in the previous lesson.

Leah: Presenting their pages as a class book also created a sense of classroom unity, giving the children the opportunity to learn about each others' interests while taking pride in their individual pages. The icing on the already delicious cake was seeing their excitement when we told them that the book would be left in their classroom so they could read it whenever they want!

Impact: Head Start Stories

This week we’re reflecting on the incredible contributions of our 2011-12 AmeriCorps Museum Educators as their service year comes to a close. These stories were shared by Abbey Jones and Sarah Bonawitz, members of the team that served 975 Head Start preschoolers in 55 classrooms with fun-filled Museum explorations and a year-long series of imaginative activities to help them understand and value diversity.

Kassie and Abbey during a Head Start classroom visit.

Bringing a Story to Life
As part of our pre-visit orientations to the Museum for children at Head Start centers, we read a book about Nori the Dragon and Tortellini the Tortoise.  The book, in line with our theme for the year, teaches about diversity and approaching the Museum in different ways.  Tortellini, the smaller friend, wanders through the Museum slowly, taking in all the details, while Nori dives into play.

After visiting a classroom at Manton Head Start Center, the children came to the Museum to explore and play just like Tortellini and Nori.  Upon arriving in Discovery Studio, the boys and girls met Tortellini himself.  One girl excitedly gathered her friends around her and selected a book similar in size to our Tortellini and Nori story." And now friends," she announced.  "I'm going to tell you a story about Nori and Tortellini at the Museum!"

Carefully, she took the book and showed it to the circle, ensuring all of her friends could see the pictures.  Then she began to narrate Nori and Tortellini's trip to the Museum, but through the lens of her own Museum experience. "First, they got on a bus," she said.  "Then they went outside and climbed in the green thing!"

I watched as the girl practiced her literacy skills by imitating me.  I saw her excitement as she traipsed through the other exhibits, reliving the story of Nori and Tortellini.  She continued commenting on her play, "just like Nori and Tortellini."  And she finished her visit with a big smile, as she finally met Nori, who peered down at her from the roof of the Museum as she boarded the bus.

– Abbey

Abbey reads the pre-visit story.

But Does it Stick?
Developing a diversity curriculum for preschoolers is no easy task. Diversity is a concept so dynamic and abstract that how could we ensure the children both comprehend and enjoy our lessons?  Despite in-depth planning and preparation, there is always a shred of worry that the lesson won’t be received well or worse, that it won’t last beyond our classroom visit. While we see the immediate impact of our lessons, we don’t really know if the content of our lesson sticks.

We implemented one of our first diversity lessons in Lori’s classroom at Dean Head Start Center, about how we all have similarities and differences in the ways we look, in what we like to do, and in what we create and bring to the classroom.  After reading The Color of Us by Karen Katz, a story of a little girl who learns about the beautiful variety of skin shades through mixing paint colors, we played a game in which the children sorted objects by color and shape.  The game challenged the children to understand that while two objects can be the same shape, they can also be different colors, and even when two objects may both be blue, they can be different shades of blue.  The children were both accurate and creative in their answers and observations. At one point Lori said, “Oh, I like this activity.  I really get it.”  Short, sweet and simple, her comment meant so much and validated the activity that we had planned with such care.

The Head Start team also helped with this year’s teacher workshop, “Embracing Diversity in the Classroom Through Storybooks,” where Head Start teachers responded to different case studies by discussing diversity in their classrooms.  One teacher explained how a child in her classroom wished he could change his skin color because he didn’t like it and sought advice from her colleagues on how to help him.  Lori suggested reading The Color of Us – a resource we had brought to her classroom.

Lori’s few but meaningful words revealed a sense of reflection I had not imagined our activities could prompt. It is teachers like Lori and moments like these that reveal the impact of the Head Start team's  curriculum development and that it does, in fact, stick.

– Sarah

Rebecca, Sarah and children during a playful diversity activity.

Reaching Out to Children in Need

Since 1997, Providence Children's Museum has been an AmeriCorps site, committed to training a team of educators to bring engaging play-based activities to children whose exposure to rich learning experiences is limited. MuseumCorps – the Museum’s AmeriCorps program – has served nearly 20,000 children through innovative outreach to inner-city community centers and Head Start programs.

Our newest 12-member MuseumCorps team began in the fall and has been hard at work serving some of the poorest neighborhoods in Providence, Central Falls and Pawtucket through these programs:

• MuseumCorps members lead inspiring hands-on activities in 58 Children’s Friend Head Start classrooms to help improve school readiness for 1,000 preschool children. 

• Through Learning Clubs, members provide engaging STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) enrichment activities for 500 low-income elementary children at over a dozen community center after-school and summer programs. 

• New this year: To deepen engagement with the neighborhood in the Museum’s backyard, MuseumCorps members are a daily presence after school at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence South Side Clubhouse. Students from Mary E. Fogarty Elementary School and other neighborhood children participate in playful STEM activities in a Museum-dedicated space. 

Members welcome program participants to explore the Museum during field trips and family nights, and to sign up for free year-long family passes.  They also facilitate play and learning for Museum visitors in exhibits and programs and recruit and coordinate Museum volunteers.

Meet the team:

 Left to right: Front - Rebecca Gormley, Ann Kerrin, Stacy Greenberg, Meagan Amylon
Middle - Andy Axel, Suzie Doogan, Sarah Bonawitz, Abbey Jones
Back - Ryan Queenan, John Rossi, Kassie Edwards, Leah Paladino

Members with Mayor Angel Taveras at a Head Start family night.

The Museum’s AmeriCorps program is made possible by a grant from the Corporation for National and Community Service and Serve Rhode Island with support from additional sponsors.

Giving Kids a Head Start

This week, we’re celebrating a year of remarkable service and the graduation of our 2010-11 AmeriCorps team with a series of posts.  MuseumCorps Educator Cassandra Kane reflected on the work of this year's Head Start team.

One of the Museum’s core values is being accessible and responsive to ALL families. Through Museum outreach programs, the most vulnerable children in Providence, Pawtucket and Central Falls experience hands-on activities developed and facilitated by MuseumCorps Educators, a group of 13 individuals committed to a year of AmeriCorps service.

This year, four of those educators—Cassi Rebisz, Bonnie Platzer, Kirsten Thomsen and myself, under the supervision of Early Childhood Program Coordinator Mary Hackman—collaborated with Children’s Friend Head Start centers in greater Providence to introduce sensory activities to 1,026 children in 57 classrooms.

Cassi, Kirsten, Cassandra and Bonnie following a successful Head Start Family Night.

We first visited the classrooms to introduce ourselves and the Museum through an interactive book we created, “Nori’s Story.” After singing and marching to the song “We’re Going on a Field Trip,” the children played with Museum toys such as puppets, costumes, blocks and trucks. Within a few days, the children visited us at the Museum for a 90-minute field trip.

Each year, Head Start teachers vote on a theme for the two classroom activities we plan. This year’s topic was the five senses, so we first read “You Can’t Taste a Pickle with Your Ear,” which comically presents the senses with rhymes and silly illustrations, then introduced each sense through fun, hands-on activities. For hearing, we played a sound matching game. We filled boxes with materials like washers, wood chips and sand, and the children took turns shaking and listening to each box to find the pairs. For smell, we placed Q-tips saturated with different scents into small spice canisters. Children took turns smelling and guessing the scents – peppermint, banana, orange, coconut, hot chocolate and cinnamon. I loved some of the children's guesses; rather than “cinnamon,” they said “apple sauce” or instead of “hot chocolate,” they exclaimed “marshmallows!” It was fun to see how certain smells reminded them of other things, which is just another form of learning. Then children used their taste buds to sample honey and lemon juice; they also learned new words like “sweet” and “sour” to describe the flavors.

For touch, we introduced natural red clay to the classrooms. Although Play-Doh is popular in preschool classrooms, we decided to show children and teachers how playing with natural materials can be just as fun. After the children felt and described the clay’s texture (Smooth or bumpy? Soft or hard? Wet or dry?), they sculpted with a variety of natural materials, including pinecones, seashells and rocks. Teachers had the option to keep the creations in their classrooms overnight so children could see how the clay dries and hardens.

In the second classroom activity, we delved more deeply into sound. After reading the interactive story “Boom, Baby, Boom Boom,” in which the children made various animal noises and kept a beat, we introduced them to the classical music of Vivaldi’s “Spring” and led them in a flower dance. Children learned to distinguish “low” and “high” sounds by playing instruments made of cans and spoons and experienced how sound vibrates and travels by talking through plastic tubes attached to funnels. The activity concluded with a rhythm game, in which we tapped and clapped in fast and slow tempos. What the team enjoyed most about this activity was showing teachers and children how to use ordinary objects (old cans, spoons) to make fun activities. You don’t need fancy instruments to explore the wonders of music and sound!

We also conducted workshops for the teachers, presenting new and exciting curriculum to implement in their classrooms. We each developed an activity based on one of the senses: Cassi showed teachers how to use old transparency machines to tell stories in a unique way; Bonnie created a “Look Book” with pictures from recycled magazines; Kirsten taught animal words in American Sign Language and told a farm story; and I demonstrated the “bottle organ” by filling five glass bottles with different levels of water to create different notes of the scale, and showed teachers how to play simple songs like “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Hot Cross Buns.”

A few weeks after lead teacher Elisa DeMatos and her assistant Aida Dones attended our workshop, Elisa told me her classroom was focusing on sound and they had created a bottle organ. They also added food coloring to each bottle and numbered them 1 to 5—two suggestions I introduced during the workshop to expand the lesson to address color and number recognition. When I visited the classroom, Elisa and Aida enthusiastically explained how simple and fun the bottle organ was to make, and how perfectly it fit into their sound curriculum. They shared that many of their students can now distinguish between “low” and “high” pitches and some enjoyed “composing” their own songs and grasped the concept of rhythm and beat. Learning that the teachers implemented an activity I introduced felt incredibly rewarding and certainly made all of the prep and planning worthwhile.

We're Honored!

The Museum has been recognized with several wonderful awards recently.

We were honored to receive the Michelle Norris Memorial Award from Children's Friend at their annual meeting – presented to an individual or organization that has provided extraordinary support and/or assistance toward their mission of improving the futures of Rhode Island’s most vulnerable children. The award is presented in memory of Michelle Norris, a Central Falls first grader who was abducted from her neighborhood and murdered over 10 years ago. We were selected in recognition of our service to children and families in need; the Museum partners with Children's Friend through our Families Together program and serves Children's Friend Head Start preschoolers through our AmeriCorps program.

Left to right: Kimberly I. McCarthy, Chairman, Children’s Friend Board of Directors; Janice O'Donnell, Museum Executive Director; Cheryl Lepre, Families Together Consulting Clinician; Nedria Greco, Families Together Clinician; Shannon Doherty, Families Together Visitation Specialist; Cassandra Kane, AmeriCorps Museum Educator; Mary Scott Hackman, Early Childhood Programs Coordinator; David Caprio, Children’s Friend President and CEO.

Museum director Janice O'Donnell, upon receiving the award: "Thank you so much for this honor. There are many reasons organizations have for not working together as partners – it's complicated, we're busy, we compete for attention, funds and prestige... But there are many much more important reasons for organizations like ours to work in close partnership – those reasons are the children and families we serve. Children's Friend understands that and is a wonderful partner, always cooperative and helpful, always aware that what's most important is the children. We are so glad to be friends with Children's Friend."

AND we were also recognized twice in the New England Museum Association's Publication Awards Competition, which "recognizes excellence in design, production, and effective communication in all aspects of museum publishing." We won first place for our previous year's annual report and third place for the "Life is a Carnival" gala invitation.

Thanks, Children's Friend and NEMA!

Making a Mural

This post was contributed by AmeriCorps Museum Educator Kerrie Hoban, a member of a team serving in the greater Providence Head Start centers operated by Children's Friend.

Providence Children’s Museum does educational outreach to low-income children and families through its AmeriCorps program and our AmeriCorps members also have the opportunity to do their own independent outreach projects.

For my independent project, I recently painted a mural on the bottom floor of Cianci Head Start preschool. The opportunity came at a point in the year when I was thinking a lot about how important art making is to children in encouraging them to feel like strong individuals.

Noticing that some of the walls of Cianci Head Start center were more notably decorated than others, I brought my ideas about painting a mural to Kim Pettaway (head teacher). She loved the drawings I showed her, inspired by the children’s book “I Am An Artist” by Pat Lowery Collins, and we talked a lot about community and how important that is to the families at Head Start. When I shared my idea for the theme of the mural, which is to encourage children and families to feel powerful when they are a part of the world (their community), she immediately told me to get to work!
Excited and armed with a brush and some drawings, I began painting the blank walls. The staff at the center was very supportive and excited and brought me water and materials when I didn’t even ask. The teachers seemed happy to have a new face in the building doing something for the children and families, even for a short while. Ultimately the best moments were the kids’ reactions of awe and surprise as they saw the wall come to life with each passing day. As groups of 3 and 4 year olds passed through the hallways to go to the playground they used their hands to mimic the image they saw, traced letters on the wall, and made observations like “that looks like me”!

Getting a Head Start at the Museum

This post was contributed by the Museum’s Head Start team: AmeriCorps Museum Educators Gina, Jenny, Jess and Kerrie and their supervisor, Early Childhood Program Developer Mary Scott Hackman. Together they serve the more than 1,300 preschool children in the greater Providence Head Start program.

A Pre-Visit Orientation (PVO) is the first interaction we have with a Head Start class. Each classroom we enter greets us with a whirlwind of energy and excitement that makes us, in turn, excited to be there. We start with a rhyming story and song that describes each Museum exhibit and calls for notable Museum characters to “join our parade!” We rarely get through the entire story without the children chiming in to tell us how much they would love to join, too. Often children will point to a picture of an exhibit and say, “I want to be in there!”
The final step to a PVO is to let the children play with toys from the Museum. This tends to be the children’s favorite part and is the hardest for us as activity leaders to bring to an end because it is so enjoyable to watch children become owls and skunks and construction workers and build us houses and cars of Magnatiles and circus blocks. By the end of our 30-minute visit, the children can’t stop chattering about when they’ll visit us at the Museum and we leave their classroom feeling rewarded by their joy and looking forward to their field trip.
– Jenny

Field Trips are one of the most rewarding (though tiring!) aspects of working as a Head Start team member. After we have visited kids at their center classroom and introduced them to the Museum, they get to visit us and experience the fun and exhibits themselves! Each of us leads a group of seven to nine Head Start children through the exhibits along with their teachers, assistants and chaperones. Many of the children have never been to the Museum before and this always elicits exclamations of “Wow!” “This is awesome!” and “I love this place!” They tend to notice Museum details that even we have forgotten, and their enthusiasm for imaginative play is truly contagious. There is nothing quite like the sight of wide-eyed 4-year-olds encountering the air tubes for the first time or the sound of boisterous giggling that inevitably takes place in front of our funny mirrors. The hardest part of each visit is saying good-bye, but we encourage the children to come back with their families again and again!
– Gina

Over the course of our AmeriCorps year we have the opportunity to develop and implement 10 Training Workshops for Head Start center teachers and assistants. This year the team chose a “Back to Nature” theme to encourage teachers to use natural resources as play tools both in and outside the classroom. Each workshop involves 15-20 teachers and lasts 40-50 minutes. It begins with a group activity of “music making” using all natural instruments including maracas and water shakers. Next Mary shares the benefits of physical activity and open-ended play in nature for children’s social development. Then the activities begin and teachers learn exciting new things to bring back to their classrooms, like how to make sand dough, terrariums and paint with pine cones. No one leaves empty handed, each teacher takes away what they made, open-ended questions to ask their kids, and a packet of a dozen new activities to try. All the while collegial conversations between teachers inspire new ideas for activities and ways to support their children.
– Kerrie

In addition to our pre-visit orientations and field trips, we lead two different Classroom Activities over the course of the year with each of our 55 Head Start rooms. We designed our lessons around a science theme, which was voted most desired by Head Start teachers. For our first activity, we chose to investigate weather – specifically rain, thunder and lightning. The children explore creative writing with a group poem, pretend to be a storm in a movement exercise and participate in a rain art activity. This is often the highlight of the lesson as children are able to draw their own pictures and use colored water and pipettes to simulate rain on their pages. In our second lesson, we introduce children to the life cycle of a frog through a book, a felt pond, a collage activity, a movement exercise and a song. It’s a busy 40 minutes but we have a lot of fun. Each room we visit teaches us new ways to improve, so our activity is constantly growing and changing (just like the frog itself!)
– Jess and Gina

On Family Nights, hundreds of excited Head Start children get to introduce their moms, dads, and siblings to the Museum and their special Museum teachers. They come in for dinner – pizza, pasta, cheese and crackers, fruit and pastry donated by area restaurants, provided free of charge to families. During the course of the evening, everyone can sign up for a free pass to come back to the Museum as often as they want for a whole year. Another wonderful aspect of Family Nights is that the children’s Head Start teachers volunteer alongside the AmeriCorps team to provide a great experience for our families. The teachers serve food, assist in exhibits or distribute free passes to families. It’s a tremendous collaborative effort. This year, we had 1,100 visitors on three Head Start Family Nights – fantastic evenings where the Museum turns into the “city square” and everyone enjoys food, fun and family!
–Mary

The hard-working, high-spirited Head Start team!