TRACK Knowledge Sharing: Kids Days At The Museum
The Isle Madame Historical Society is the umbrella organization that manages the LeNoir Landing Site which includes the LeNoir Forge Museum and The Isle Madame Community Archives as well as other visitor services. I have been the Executive Director for a number of years. We serve the Isle Madame area. Our collection is devoted to the people of Isle Madame which includes many Acadian, Irish, Scottish, and Channel Island families.
For such a small community, the LeNoir Landing site is an important historical gathering place. We welcome visitors and local residents, conducting guided tours and assisting with research inquiries. Like any community based organization, our goal is to be engaged and relevant to our community. The IMHS Board of Directors decided to target different age groups and establish programming that would be welcoming, enjoyable and educational. One of the areas that was a concern is how do we engage children in activities that were positive and fun in the hopes of creating future support for the museum. Hence “Kids Days at the Museum” was established.
Kids Days are comprised of an hour and a half themed program which takes place weekly during the summer season. We have moved around the days and times over the years and have established that Friday mornings work best for our community. Attendance can vary but we have a core group of families that attend regularly. We have a maximum number of children (18) for each session, to ensure we have proper supervision and supplies. Most children pre-register prior to the event and in the last few years we are usually fully booked. However, we also take walk-ins if space allows. The weekly programs are designed for different age groups, one week the program will be designed for 4 – 8 year olds, the next we may target 6 – 10 or 8 – 12 year olds.
Our goal for this program was for it to be different from the type of programming that we do during school visits. All programs have an educational component and it is important to us that the children leave happy and excited to tell caregivers what they did or learned that day. The themes must be enticing to children and age appropriate. Some parents drop off children and others prefer to stay on site, both are fine with us. We make a point of collecting any allergy information and emergency contact numbers before parents leave.
Some of the more popular themes have been “Learn to Be A Spy” (8 – 12), “The Sea” which included Pirates as well as Boat Building (ages 4 – 8). Everyone loves “LeNoir Landing Olympic Games” and Cooking School. Our staff favourite is “Clown School” (ages 8 – 12) where centres are set up and participants learn the basics of face painting, card tricks, juggling, mime artistry and creating costumes. All sessions start with a warm up activity based on the theme, they usually do some sort of craft, and we always include a few games that help keep everyone active. Activities switch about every 20 minutes. We are flexible if some children request more time to finish an art project we divide the group, those that are finished may play an outdoor game while the others complete their project.
Some of the benefits we see in doing children’s programming is that the participants become familiar with the museum. During school visits, which happen in spring & fall, we often have Kids Day participants tell other students about coming to Kids Days in the summer and feel confident knowing the names of the buildings and where the bathrooms are. We have had many of the participants from the early years become junior volunteers and summer employees. We have also noticed that the incidents of vandalism have decreased considerably over the years as participants see the museum as their place, and you don’t damage your place.
One of the biggest challenges during the first years was gathering and purchasing materials and supplies that would be needed to do the program. We approached a local business for support and they agreed to sponsor the purchase of materials for the program. We were able to purchase puzzles, games, gym equipment and art supplies. As the program has been running for many years we only really need to replenish consumable supplies such as paper and paint. Another challenge was to find a time and day when we were not competing with other organizations who do children’s programming in our area. The solution was the formation of a group of community partners. This group now gets together every spring, where we share information on our summer plans and ensure that we are not competing for times, dates and themes.
If you are considering introducing children’s programming, our advice would be do it! Choose interesting themes, keep it simple, put time into planning, train the volunteers or staff so that they feel comfortable and enjoy the program and encourage the kids to have fun! Kids Day has achieved our goal and the benefits to the museum and the community have been further reaching than we had imagined!
Happy Planning!
Susan
