Scenes from Vacation Week

Last week was an extra-eventful school vacation week! Museum staff and volunteers shared some great moments seen and heard as families played, explored and discovered together:

As I was walking to the Admissions Desk, I spied a fabulous threesome walking through the parking lot. One princess, one superhero and one adult starlet entered the Museum for a day of decked-out fun. Turns out the princess and her entourage were visiting for her birthday. It was so wonderful to see ALL of the family celebrating in a fun and special way!

–Liz Leahey, Experience Coordinator

A woman told me how much she loved one of the engineering programs, and that it was a wonderful way to introduce her young daughters to opportunities in science. She really appreciated that the program captured their interest and that it gave them ideas for what they might do when they grew up.

–Bonnie Platzer, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

A girl wanted to play in Water Ways but all of the aprons were being used. She took her dad by the hand and led him to the coatroom. She came back wearing her raincoat! She said, “Wasn’t that a smart idea?” Yes it was!

–Cynthia Calabro, Experience Coordinator

In Iway, three boys and one girl were playing with the big purple and yellow blocks. I showed them how to build an arch bridge and then the young boy asked, “Can I show you how I build my bridge?” The older boy then pointed to the collage of bridge pictures from around the world and proclaimed, “Yeah, there are all kinds of different bridges!” A few other kids joined in too, showing me so proudly all of their innovative ways – each one completely different – to build a bridge!

–Cassandra Kane, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

I saw two boys wearing the construction vest and hardhats from Iway, so I asked them how the construction was going. It took them a moment to catch on but then they said it was going very well and that the bridge would be done in a few weeks. I told them that I was very relieved and let them know that there was some construction that needed to happen immediately on the ship because I was setting sail that evening. They quickly went "back to work" on the ship – especially after I told them that I would pay them $100/hour!

–Rachel Schwartz, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

While greeting visitors at the Admissions Desk, I watched a little girl and her grandma get ready to leave. I bent down and asked her, “Did you have fun?” She looked at me and said,“YES!,” then put her hand close to her mouth as if she was going to tell me a secret. She whispered, “Next time I’m bringing my grandpa, too. He’s going to have a blast!”

–Carolina Roberts, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

Free Friday Reflections

This post was contributed by Lyndsey Ursillo, AmeriCorps Museum Educator. Lyndsey is part of a team of 13 dynamic and diverse individuals who have dedicated a year to working with underserved children and families. AmeriCorps members design and implement enriching activities for Head Start; create and conduct after-school Learning Clubs at local community centers; recruit and coordinate Museum volunteers; and receive training in museum education, learning theory and public service.

I worked during Free Friday last week and had a really great night that reaffirmed my belief in kids and play and the Museum in general. Over the winter, I was losing some of the enthusiasm I had when I first started at the Museum and found myself watching kids instead of really engaging with them.

At Free Friday, however, I was completely surprised at how new and exciting the Museum could become for me and the kids I was interacting with! The night started off with a local marching band coming through the Museum and playing for everyone, which reminded me that there is so much creative energy in this city that is not shared enough. It really pumped me up for the night and I think it did the same for the visitors. I led the program "Stack ‘Em Up” – building towers from paper cups – and I was amazed at how much fun it was to build a large tower and then knock it down with kids. It also brought to light a fact that I already knew but hadn't really acknowledged: kids love to play with simple every day items, they do not need fancy technological toys all the time. The program lasted two hours but the time flew and I was sad to see it end.
At the end of the night I helped a few parents coax their children out of the Museum by promising to show them Nori the dragon's tail outside, which I have never done before. And it worked! Kids actually wanted to go outside and see the tail. As I was racing a little girl down the ramp to go outside I thought to myself, "We forget as adults how wonderful it is to be a kid and I'm glad I can be around kids for my job!"


Click here to learn more about the Museum's AmeriCorps program. Click here for more information on the Museum's free MetLife Family Fridays, sponsored by MetLife Foundation.

Kids are Engineers!

This article by Program Developer Carly Baumann and was originally posted on Kidoinfo.

A favorite Children’s Museum activity, Puff Mobiles are made by constructing simple wheeled cars with paper sails, designed to catch the stream of air a child blows through a straw. I’ve seen kids innovate with many creative constructions over the years: wide sails, double sails, weighted bases.I observed Puff Mobiles in an after-school Learning Club and noticed a child who appeared to be disengaged. Instead of huffing and puffing on her vehicle, she rested it on the floor while her eyes wandered the room. Overturning a Styrofoam tray of paper, she fanned the tray in her face, blinking in the wind. Then she waved it rapidly at her sail, sending the vehicle steadily forward. Just as I began to tell her how excited I was and that I had never seen anyone try that technique before, she picked up a carpet square and flapped it at the Puff Mobile, launching it halfway across the room!

This 8-year-old girl was an engineer – applying imagination and analytical thinking to solve a problem, pulling herself so far out of the box she transcended the problem of the sail and changed the air itself! In our day-to-day lives, we overcome challenges by thinking like engineers all the time: assessing the situation, testing and re-testing solutions to make the best of the resources we have available to us. The more practice children (and all of us!) have stretching our problem-solving muscles, the more flexible and creative our thinking becomes.


2011 marks the 60^th anniversary of National Engineers Week, February 20-26. Volunteers from the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers will lead engineering activities with Children’s Museum visitors this month. I asked several of the engineers what types of play they were drawn to as kids, and how the adults in their lives supported their interests. Not surprisingly, fort building and creating cities and bridges with blocks and other open-ended construction toys was echoed by each of the engineers. But I was also struck by the common theme of having time and space to figure things out on their own and bring their imaginations to their play.

• Jen DiStefano benefited from a balance of sports, which helped her get comfortable with her position in a team dynamic, and child-driven, unplugged play – “finding ways to occupy our time… outside from early morning to sunset.”
• According to Chad Morrison, “Any sort of toy that involved building and understanding how the parts go together really appealed to me.” (Chad is now designing stairs for the LEGO facility in Enfield, CT!)
• “I would keep all my LEGOs in one huge bin and then just start building an idea and figure out what I needed to do to get there,” Doug Martin remembered.
• “We constantly designed stadiums and houses,” said Matt Pitta. “My parents were supportive and positive, even when supplying constructive criticism on the designs.”

Kids are engineering whenever they dig a moat for their sandcastle or arrange a fort of sofa cushions – special supplies aren’t required. Ideas for engineering challenges using every day materials, like designing catapults or animation toys, are a fun and interactive way to shake up play routines at home. Some great resources the Museum uses are from the PBS shows “FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman,” “Design Squad Nation” for 9-12 year olds, and the now-cancelled “ZOOM”; also Things to Make and Do from the Exploratorium, an incredible San Francisco museum of science, art and perception.

Have fun scratching your heads and discovering “Eureka!” moments as engineers at home!

Join Providence Children’s Museum to celebrate National Engineers Week AND February school vacation! Be An Engineer and experiment with electrical conductivity and oobleck on February 19. Block Builders tackle construction challenges on February 23 & 25. And Young Engineers learn how civil engineers plan buildings and bridges on February 26. Visit the Museum’s website for details.

The Carousel is BACK!

Longtime friends of the Museum will remember our colorful carousel, which has been out of commission for a while because, like all well-loved Children’s Museum components, sometimes they need a little extra care! Young children especially have always been drawn to the cheerful music as the carousel rotates to reveal some unexpected creatures. So we’re thrilled to have it back and in its new location, right in the lobby, where we know it will once again get a lot of attention.

In honor of the carousel’s reappearance, here’s a blast from the past: an article announcing the carousel’s arrival in the Museum’s January/February 2000 newsletter!

Local Group Carves Out New Exhibit
Gnomes, bears, birds and clowns abound as the Museum hosts a fascinating exhibit of wood carvings done by a local circle of friends who call themselves “The Splinter Group.” The nine men in the group meet every week in a Bristol basement to carve intricate and charming figures from wood. The best examples of these carvings have been brought together and are on display at the Museum.

One of the most whimsical creations in the exhibit is a colorful carousel that six members of the Splinter Group made and donated to the Museum [in summer 1999]. The working carousel is accurate down to the last detail: it has tiny horses that move up and down, a popcorn stand with real popcorn and a brightly striped cloth canopy on top. “Even the music that plays as the carousel rotates is a recording of the Looff Carousel in East Providence,” explained Dan Elkins, Splinter Group secretary and long-standing member...

Hand-carved animals and exotic animals prance around the
Museum’s model carousel, a gift of the Splinter Group.

Check out more of Dan Elkins’s carvings in the circus case in the stairwell. And look for more information about the many artists whose work is featured in the Museum in future posts. What artist or artwork do YOU most want to know about?
Related posts:
The Story of Estrella
Puppet Masters!
(About our marionette collection - look for a new display coming next month!)

Junk Music!

Last weekend, RISD junior Max Frieder brought an incredible infusion of creative experiences to the Museum’s Paint Play program. Visitors made some joyful noise as they grabbed drumsticks and explored the sounds of Max’s colorful “Foundstrument Soundstrument,” an interactive percussive sculpture created from a motley mixture of found materials and reclaimed junk.

A project developed over a series of four RISD courses, Max describes the Foundstrument as a wonderful interactive teaching tool that “makes sounds of all kinds, from bops of plastic pipes, to chimes of casted glass, to the bing of reverbarating metal. The different scales have different tones, and there are objects on it of all different kinds of mediums.”

As children explored the beat, Max also led them in a collaborative mural-making activity, while Museum play guides facilitated a printing activity with a vibrant array of paints. Check it out:

Museum staff and AmeriCorps members shared some of their observations and impressions of the program’s magical sights and playful sounds:

To the soundtrack of banging, binging and tapping filling the air, a mom and her son's faces both lit up with smiles – he engaged in painting the background of the mural with an array of colors and moving with his whole body across the floor, she engaged in watching him. I loved what she said to me: “I feel so stimulated right now!”

A group of older boys were painting, playing music, and hanging out with Max, learning more about the making of the Foundstrument. Max told that them that, as an art student, THIS was his homework. Four pairs of eyes widened and the boys said in unison, “Awesome!”

On Sunday, Max invited a friend of his who works with ¡CityArts! – a musician and experiences percussionist – to play on the Foundstrument with visitors. It brought a new dimension to the music to have her sustain an inspiring bold beat while kids and grown-ups began adding their own rhythms, fleshing out the sound and morphing it. It was like a junk drum circle, but you weren't limited to one “drum,” you could change the instrument as you went along. And two of Max's Big Nazo friends came as their creature alter-egos!

–Carly, Program Developer

Kids were shocked when they were handed a stick and told to go at it and then Mom or Dad joined in, too! “This one makes a cool sound,” said a 10-year-old girl as we banged and made rhythms on a tin kettle, wooden cylinders, and old plastic toys that were drilled into a wheel barrel. Experimenting with different sounds and trying to join in the beat with the artists was my favorite part. I felt that I was making something with children that was purely original that would never be repeated or heard again.

–Kerrie, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

The thing that really stuck with me was the kids’ faces when they saw the Foundstrument – it was a look of wonderment and shock. Some kids weren't sure if they could really hit everything with the drumsticks and others just jumped right in and encouraged the shy kids. It was great! The painting activity went along with it really well because it was two very creative, unstructured experiences in the same place.

–Lyndsey, AmeriCorps Museum Educator

Two children made the biggest impression on me. One young artist, about 7 years old, was playing in front of the funhouse mirrors – she and her mom with their hands full of her beautiful paintings. It was clear how hard she had worked as she told me the paintings’ descriptive names and about her inspiration. And 6-year-old Ethan explored the Foundstrument so seriously, testing all of the parts and sounds, moving to the beat, and breaking out into infectious laughter as he discovered some of its funny details – like a set of plastic teacups and a pair of roller skates. Next, Ethan moved to the painting activities, focusing intently as his bold patterns emerged. It was truly inspiring to see children – and Max! – so engaged in various forms of creative expression, and that the Museum was the setting for this multisensory adventure.

–Megan, Communications Director

Celebrating MLK

Each year, the Museum presents a day of special programming to commemorate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Storytellers and actors Rochel Coleman and Valerie Tutson bring history to life through songs and stories in compelling performances of “M.L.K.: Amazing Grace” as they portray well-known Civil Rights activists and ordinary Americans who changed the world.

Families also explore an exhibit of photographs, words and books describing Dr. King's life and work and can choose to participate in an interactive anti-discrimination activity, during which they wear a red or green tag and encounter “red only” and “green only” labels throughout the Museum – on lunchroom tables, bathroom doors, water fountains and more. The activity and performance inspire reflection and thought-provoking conversations.

Monday day’s program was full of powerful moments and provocative comments, shared by Museum staff and AmeriCorps members:

• I overheard a mom say to her daughter – wearing green, approaching a red fountain – “Don’t you use that, it’s red!” Girl: “But where’s a green one?” Mom: “I don’t know, maybe there isn’t one, how would that feel?” She stuck her tongue out and gave an exasperated look, “Blaahh!” I told her there is one somewhere in the Museum. She said, “It’s confusing being green.”

• Three children who came to the Museum together all chose red signs. When asked why they chose that color one of the children said, “So we can be together.” Another child remarked, “Also we wanted to be able to drink from the water fountain upstairs and it has a RED ONLY sign.”

• “I’m lucky enough that my friend is also green.”

• How does discrimination feel? “Not so fun. Not fair because if people have family members that have a different color, they can’t sit together. Not fair because I can’t sit next to my little brother.”

• A grandmother and her two grandkids. Boy, age 7: “In CCD my teacher told me the blacks had to sit in the back of the bus and the whites in the front.” Girl, age 10: “I think that he was right to stand up for all of the blacks and he was brave.” Grandmother: “She wants to do a dance performance of cultures with her dance teacher to fight racial discrimination.”

• Conversation with a mother: She said her son is a minority in his school even though he is white and she thought it was important to teach kids acceptance at an early age. She thought it was great the Museum does this type of activity.

• Another mom commented that it’s a spectacular event – she and her child plan ahead and have come for the last three years.

• A boy, age 6: “MLK helped people with black skin and with white skin go to school together. I’m glad this happened.”

• A girl, age 6, and I were looking at and talking about a book about MLK. She put her hand next to mine, looked at me and said, “Are we white? ‘Cause I really think I’m more…tan.” I replied, “Skin’s not really white or black – and what does it matter anyway?”

• A mom shared that her 6-year-old daughter “has been feeling really sad since she learned about MLK in school. She keeps asking why someone would kill someone who only wanted to do good in the world. The performance today at the Children's Museum put it all in context. So exciting to see her mind absorbing the world...”

And some wonderful responses left on our Talk Back board, to the question, “What will you do to fight racial discrimination?”:

And what will YOU do?

Thanks to Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and Herman H. Rose for their support of this event.

"Mistakes ­are the Portals of Discovery"

This article by Director of Education Cathy Saunders and was originally posted on Kidoinfo.

When I started working at the Children’s Museum five years ago, I quickly realized that no matter how neat my hair was or how smart my outfit, it all became irrelevant when I walked past the Museum’s “fun-house” mirrors. It was pretty hard to take myself too seriously when I saw short rounded legs and an elongated neck reflected back to me.

Adults and children can get caught up in doing things right, fitting in, being super student or super parent. There are pressures to get the homework done, have the right toys, and be as good at everything as your peers. It’s easy to forget the fun-house-mirror view of the world – that the irregularities and mistakes can be joyful opportunities.

Think about our evolution from birth into adulthood for a moment. An infant doesn’t know what a mistake is. There are no “shoulds” in his world; everything is an open-ended exploration. A toddler will topple over, and unfazed, get right back up and continue on to her destination. By nature, preschoolers interpret the world creatively. A pencil is so much more than something to scribble with; to them it is a drumstick, a magic wand, a stick to dig in the dirt with, or perhaps a wriggling snake.


Too often though, as we get older, we lose this aptitude for divergent thinking. We start seeing a stick as a stick, not as an invitation into imaginative inquiry. But this kind of creativity is at the heart of the skills that experts agree are needed for the 21st century and there is much concern that we are raising a generation of children who are not adequately prepared to meet the complex challenges the future holds. (This has been a hot topic of discussion recently, and for those of you who want to check some of it out, I suggest Daniel Pink’s 2005’s bestseller “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future“; YouTube videos of creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson’s lectures about divergent thinking and the education system; and Newsweek’s recent article “The Creativity Crisis”).


I think our discomfort with mistakes is one of the key elements to this crisis of creative thinking. We have been so trained to look for the right answer that we’re afraid to see any other choices. I see it in children who tell me what they think I, the instructor, want to hear rather than interpreting their own discoveries. I find it in myself, too, as I fret over buying a birthday present or planning a workshop schedule (or writing a blog post!).

In the heat of trying to be superhuman, I can forget the wise words of Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” I was able to embrace this attitude of welcoming mistakes with new relish recently when I discovered “Beautiful Oops!“ In this clever and artistic pop-up book, Barney Saltzberg encourages us to see a stain or a rip as starting point for creativity and inspires the imaginations of both children and adults.

So I ask of us parents, educators and citizens of the world: Can we teach our children – and ourselves – to find the meaning in our mishaps? To laugh and say, “What are we going to try next?” when things don’t go according to plan? I certainly hope so because it is much more fun than feeling defeated!


James Joyce is credited with the quote used for the title.