Philbert’s Travels

We recently welcomed a new display to our atrium walkway, created by AmeriCorps Museum Educators Sarah Bonawitz and Rebecca Gormley, who humorously shared their process and inspiration.

We designed and installed Philbert’s Travels: Around the World in 17 Scenes, the latest ramp box exhibit. Inspired by the Museum’s beautiful collections of glass penguins, antique tin toys, miniature architecture, and Victorian dollhouse furniture, we wanted to combine some of these pieces with our own handmade components. Using the wide variety of materials the Museum’s basement had to offer and the guidance of several Museum staff, we created a quirky story about a penguin named Philbert who travels the world. As we also love to travel, we felt it best that the real story – Philbert’s story – come from none other than Philbert himself.

“Everyone thinks that a penguin’s life is all fun and games. Sure, there’s the sledding on your stomach and playing a game of “Go Fish” around the fire, but sometimes you just want to get away from the everyday. That’s why I, Philbert the Penguin, decided to take the trip of a lifetime.

First I made a list of all the places I wanted to go. As it turns out, there were a fair few. I knew I wanted to lounge under the feathery branches of palm trees at the beach, to ride along cottony clouds in a multi-colored balloon, and perhaps above all, to float among the ribbon-like rings of Saturn and shiny satellites of the Final Frontier. Almost as important as the where, of course, was how I would get from place to place. During the average day, your average penguin does an average amount of waddling and sliding, but I had to keep reminding myself that this was to be the trip of a lifetime! From boarding mountain-bound trains to sailing the seven seas, a penguin needs to be ready for anything. “No more waddling for me,” I thought, “No siree – I am finally going to fly!”

And fly I did! From scaling mountains to touring the City of Love to making new friends, I have memories I’ll never forget. Sure, not everything went exactly as planned on my trip – there was the day I spent hours waiting for my bus to the beach. There was the agonizing time I lost my way in the desert. And I’m only just recovering from the time I stumbled upon an erupting volcano. But hey, that’s why they call it an adventure!”

Try It at Home! - Summer Fun

The Museum's play specialists compiled a list of some of our favorite activities to keep kids busy and having fun throughout the summer.

BUBBLE PLAY

• Basic Bubble Solution  Mix one cup of Dawn® dishwashing liquid with a gallon of water.  Let it sit open to the air overnight for stronger bubbles.
• Bubble Wands  Gather ordinary household items and recycled materials with hoop shapes and built-in holes, like slotted spoons and plastic six-pack rings, and use them to blow and launch bubbles. 
• More about bubble play

WATER PLAY

• Sidewalk Spray Art  Ask a friend to lie down on the sidewalk or driveway.  Using a spray bottle, squirt the ground around your friend’s body with water until it is completely outlined, then check out the shape that’s left behind!  Try spraying other designs and patterns.
• Water Painting  Paint with water on a large rock or the sidewalk.  Use natural materials as brushes.
• Float a Boat  Build boats out of tree bark, sticks and leaves and race them down a stream or across a puddle or pool.

MUD PLAY

• Mud Pies  Use kitchen tools like muffin tins, condiment containers and a garlic press to mold mucky “treats” and decorate them with found natural materials. 
• Mud Painting  Use brushes, grasses or your fingers to make a marvelous mud-painted mural on the sidewalk or driveway. 
• More about mud play

 AROUND THE BLOCK

• Obstacle Course  Set up a crazy course in your yard using jump ropes, hoops, balls, chairs and more and have a relay race.  Take turns designing new courses.
• Neighborhood Safari  Talk a walk through a park or around your neighborhood.  Take paper and crayons and do rubbings of tree bark, buildings and other surfaces.  Collect leaves and twigs for a nature collage or other art project.
• Bug Out!  Capture insects, worms, spiders and other cool creatures and use a magnifying glass to compare their parts.  Find a field guide at the library and learn how to identify insects.  Be sure to release the critters when you’re done with your observation!

AT THE BEACH

• Rock On  Stack rocks of different shapes and sizes to create artful stone sculptures. 
• Shadow Art  With a friend, take turns forming funny positions and different shapes with your bodies.  Trace each other's shadows with a stick in the sand and decorate them with shells, pebbles and other beach materials.  (Also try this in dirt, or with chalk on pavement.)

What favorite activities would you add to the list?

Play at the Park!

Providence Children’s Museum is facilitating a series of “pop-up play” activities at Providence public parks in July and August, taking big blue Imagination Playground blocks plus other loose parts and open-ended fun to neighborhoods across the city. This is a pilot program, in partnership with the Providence Department of Parks and Recreation, to bring unstructured Museum-quality play experiences to public spaces while raising awareness of the importance of play for children’s growth and development.

PLAY AT THE PARK with Providence Children's Museum

Saturday, July 7 • 10:30 AM - 1:30 PM

Algonquin House (Broad Street) – Farmers' Market

Thursday, July 19 • 5:00 - 8:00 PM

Dexter Training Ground (Parade Street) – Farmers’ Market and performance by Boo City (rock, country and soul music)

Wednesday, July 25 • 10:00 AM - Noon

Cabral Park (Wickenden Street in Fox Point)

Wednesday, August 8 • 1:00 - 3:00 PM

Richardson Park (Richardson Street and Prairie Avenue)

Thursday, August 9 • 5:30 - 7:30 PM

Roger Williams Park (Broad Street entrance) – Performance by ECAS Theater (Spanish-language/bilingual music, dance and theater)

Tuesday, August 14 • 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM

Burnside Park (in Kennedy Plaza)

Supporting Summer Learning

The Museum serves low-income preschool and elementary school-aged children year-round through MuseumCorps, our AmeriCorps program. This school year, MuseumCorps members provided stimulating hands-on learning experiences to 1,300 children in Head Start and out-of-school time programs in disadvantaged communities in Providence and Pawtucket. New this summer, we are expanding summer enrichment programming, designed to combat summer learning loss in math and reading skills, to serve another 200 children.

Children living in poverty often lack enriching opportunities that children from affluent families have – quality preschool, after-school and summer programs, exposure to cultural organizations like museums, travel, even shared reading in their homes – leading to a shocking achievement gap.

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation reports that children in all socioeconomic groups learn at the same rate – at least when it comes to basic skills – during the school year. Nearly all of the differences in achievement between poor and middle class children are rooted in the inequities they experience beyond school, namely in early childhood learning and out-of-school time opportunities. These inequities are especially pronounced during the summer months. Studies show that all children lose an average of 2.6 months of grade-level equivalency in math skills over the summer. But while middle class children continue to learn or hold steady in reading and language skills, lower-income children lose ground, resulting in an average gap of three months in reading skills.

Clearly low-income children are most in need of academic support and enrichment, and Museum Learning Clubs serve a critical need. We’ve added 4 new MuseumCorps members to our existing team of 12 and together they will serve 15 groups of kids at Boys & Girls Club in the Fox Point and South Side neighborhoods of Providence, Capital City Community Centers (Smith Hill Summer Program), Highlander Charter School, Louie's Place at South Providence Neighborhood Ministries, Nickerson House Community Center, Pawtucket Child Opportunity Zone and Silver Lake Community Center over the summer.

Under the guidance of our MuseumCorps members, these kids will design paper airplanes and gliders to discover the properties of air, track the sun's movement through a sun spotter telescope, investigate the wonder of nature by handling worms and dissecting owl pellets, explore problem-solving and design challenges as they conduct “egg drop” experiments, and try plenty of other fun and engaging hands-on activities that will curb their summer learning loss.

Learn more about the importance of summer learning in Rhode Island from RI After School Plus Alliance (RIASPA).

Get Out!

Unstructured, freely chosen play promotes children’s healthy growth and development, but many kids don’t get enough free play, especially outdoors. The warm summer months invite kids to indulge in more carefree, active, outdoor play that is not as available during the school year. This summer, we're offering an array of powerful outdoor play experiences on the Museum's grounds and well beyond.

Splash in the fountain and soak up the sun in the Museum's native Children’s Garden – a perfect place to play, explore and take a break with a picnic lunch. Wriggle and stretch through the sculptural two-story-high Climber, an enclosed maze of undulating platforms. Adventure through the whimsical subterranean world of Underland and discover root systems, worm tunnels and critters’ burrows. A selection of toys – including jump ropes, hula hoops and bouncing balls – promotes active, physical play.

Explore the Museum’s great outdoors during active programs all summer long:

• Get Out! – Try fun hands-on activities each Tuesday in July and August from 1:00 - 3:00 PM. Use the power of air to send rockets soaring, mix up mud pies, build channels to move water, and more. Learn more.
• Wheels at Work – Climb aboard a different working vehicle on Wednesdays in July and August from 10:00 AM - Noon. Learn more.
• Bubble Blowout – Blow bubbles big and small and experiment with different bubble-blowing techniques on July 28 and 29 from 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM.
• Worm World – Observe how worms wiggle and investigate a wormy habitat on August 10 and 11 from 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM. 

Check the calendar for additional details and plenty of other hands-on fun, and stay tuned to learn more about our new "pop-up play" initiative. Have a playful summer!

Talking Back: Word Play

Inspired by the Word Play exhibit that we've been delighted to have in the atrium walkway for the past few months, we asked visitors to draw pictures that illustrate a word or a saying in a funny way.  Here's what some of them – kids and adults – shared:

A lovely representation of Nori, the Museum's rooftop dragon!

From the Earth to the Moon

We recently welcomed a new display to our marionette case, From the Earth to the Moon, created by AmeriCorps Museum Educators Suzie Doogan and Andy Axel. They described their inspiration as they worked with the Museum’s collection of Betty Huestis marionettes.

“When we looked at the marionette collection, we wondered where these guys could go that they haven’t already gone. What is some place that is mysterious and cool that could bring these characters together? The moon!

We wanted to stay true to the time period [when Betty created the marionettes] and had two different inspirations drawn from the same era that led us to the moon. Andy was inspired by the early silent film “A Voyage to the Moon” by George Méliès. Suzie was inspired by Salvador Dali's surrealist landscapes and also by the film “The Blood of a Poet” by Jean Cocteau. We liked the romance of the moon before people had actually gone to it, the loneliness and mystery associated with it, and its openness to different interpretations as a symbol of many human things.

At first we wanted it all to be on the moon, but then a journey was more exciting. We built a moon, then the Earth. A spotted dog, a butterfly, and a boy on a homemade rocket go to the moon. A painter stays on Earth and paints the moon. A green man, Humpty Dumpty, and a smiling ghost are already there.

We wanted to put in things that weren’t 100% explainable so people would have to admit that they don’t know everything. So we put in a hanging key and also a prehistoric horse that looks like a dinosaur robot. The key can mean different things to different people."

Join the puppets on their journey next time you’re at the Museum.  Click here to learn about our previous marionette displays.