Clarification about Children's Museum classes

I received this email from Kylee at the Children's Museum:

"It was nice to meet you earlier this week and I hope you enjoyed your time in the Twin Cities. My Google alert picked up your blog entries about your trip to the Museum and I wanted to clarify a few things.

Our school group visits have not been suspended; it is our Museum classes that have been discontinued. Museum classes are hour long classroom experiences for visiting school groups. School groups are still able to visit the Museum, we just don't offer the classroom experiences at this time (which were optional for school group visits, not automatically included). Also, the Discovery Trunks are not a substitute for the Museum classes; we have been offering those for years.

I just wanted to clarify those things to avoid any confusion. Hope you have a returned home safe and sound. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best,

Kylee"

More pictures from the Children's Museum

I uploaded the pictures I took of the Minneapolis Children's Museum to this folder:

I:\Photos\Outside of the Library\20090616 Minneapolis Children's Museum

Big Read Summary

Tuesday, April 16th 3pm - 9pm

670 attendees, 269 cities are participating this year.

The first day’s orientation consisted of Grants and Program Management, Education and Promotional Materials, and miscellaneous contact information: arts.blog.bigread.com, hotline 612-238-8010, thebigread@artsmidwest.org.

We had dinner (chicken with some weird cheesy stuff on the top that we all scraped off in order to eat the chicken) then a keynote speech by Tim O’Brien, the author of The Things They Carried, which is one of the Big Read selections. He told us about watching his son disappear into the ocean and I didn’t know if that was true or not. He recounted his childhood girlfriend’s dying from a brain tumor, and the death of his father, so I left feeling a bit depressed.

　

Wednesday, April 17

Successful Community Partnerships:

Public Officials - let them pick the event they want to attend; work around their schedule

Programs off site - film festivals, writing workshops, panel discussions

Nature center - Call of the Wild kickoff at local Nature center

Community College - professor did lectures about book

Senior Center - book discussions, birds of prey program

Boy Scouts

Camping Trips

Senior Assistant Centers - cross collaboration with high school readers

See page 15 -16 for additional resources

Managing Public and Media Relations

Political and elected officials on board - be aware of election cycle

Create a timeline

Daily Newspaper - recruit editor for Big Read team, articles

Wrap buses with advertisements for Big Read

Hold monthly meetings with team

Book Clubs and reading groups - get the word out and solicit readers to join

Website - online trivia contest, teasers

Partners who do their own advertising - make sure they use Big Read logo

Licensing - if people read from the book and are videotaped - can’t do that

Face book page

Have publicity photos ready to go, contact info. Ready to go

Video promotion - be aware of what message you’re sending out. One had high schoolers doing a Jeopardy type game and nobody knew the answers

Photos - have signed releases, announce at programs that photos may be used for publication - tacit permission

Letters to the editor - encourage people to write letters if they enjoyed program, work with editors

Public service announcements - buy a block of ad time, if they run ours for free, have contests for high schoolers to create a psa, most effective are psa’s with local people, community based

Look for ideas on You tube - look up Big Read

Involving and Working with Schools

Artistic connections - exhibits with school art projects, photography

What worked: giving away copies of book with readers guide, Tableing - going into high schools cafeteria and setting up a table with free books and info.

What didn’t work: film contest

What worked:

Contact schools earlier the better - be clear to administrators what is in it for them and their students - first contact administrators, attend regional meetings, work with teachers

Lesson plan - approaching schools

Create PowerPoint, meet with teams of teachers, give them book bags or t-shirts

Customize the Big Read banners - a printer can apply removable stuff that you can use a blow dryer to remove

Junior college, private schools, reluctant readers, extra credit activities, work with school curriculum

What didn’t work: timing of their program

Elementary school:

Family reading nights

High schoolers help out

Abridged versions of book

Mark Twain impersonator

One act play

Art project - lumberyard donated pieces of fence which were given to schools to decorate illustrating the themes from the book, then displayed at their Tom Sawyer Day festival - ice cream social, music, hay rides, watermelon spitting contest, fishing

Reluctant readers

5 session book club - receive prize for reading

Use retirees

Newspapers: use a question from the Readers guide and ask for an adult response and a kids response and post them so you can see each group responded.

Involve home schools - associations or cooperative groups

Programming Discussion

Mock funeral - “Bury Illiteracy” - hearse, with lots of food and music - Alabama contingent

Get ideas from Teen Advisory Council

Family picnic, parades, contests on a lake or river

Read it Forward - book has a sticker with library’s blog information and left at various places - next time someone travels leave Bless Me Ultima and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in the waiting room

Bobby Horton - composer of Ken Burns documentary will conduct symphony for a couple of thousand - let’s check him out

One act plays - 45 min. play with kids as the actors - script from Colin Cox - I’ll email him

Toddler versions of books - “Danger in the Graveyard”

Family friendly - Little Read and Littlest Read - guess we weren’t the first ones to do a Little Read

Senior Centers - read chapters from book

　
Original illustrations in public domain. Contact Mark Twain House for good scans - $15 Jeff.Mainville@marktwainhouse.org

Permission slips for books - challenging book, we encourage you to read the book with your child

Oral History - one library is doing a local history project by taking oral histories - thought this is a great idea since we received the grant for local history

Read the book out loud

How to sell the book to adults - one man was concerned that Tom Sawyer wouldn’t appeal to his adult audience - impress upon them the importance of Mark Twain’s literature

Create a backdrop of Tom and Becky - kids and adults can stick their heads in the empty slots where the heads would be

Life size poster of Mark Twain at guildcraft
　

Reconvened at 2pm for a wrap up and film Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya which is really good. We came back with a lot of great ideas!

More museum photos

Sidewalk chalk on the rooftop was fun for most ages. A relatively low cost part of the exhibit.

The Donor Wall on the first floor.

State Capitol of Minnesota

We walked outside the parking garage in St. Paul and noticed the state capitol building up the street.

Big Read Orientation begins

Today at 3 pm, the Big Read Orientation began, with over 650 Big Read grantees all arriving at the Minneapolis Hilton. The event kicked off with everyone picking up their orientation packets. When we went to get our packets, Christine Taylor, the Arts Midwest Program Director saw Karye and me and told us that we "threw them for a loop" when we applied for 2 Big Read grants. She said they went through all the grant fine print and couldn't find anything that said we couldn't do that, and they had to approve it. I told her that one Big Read grant just wasn't enough.....

During the orientation opening, there was a short welcome by David Kipen, NEA National Reading Initiatives Director. Next, Christine Taylor talked about Grant & Program Management and Materials Distribution.

The meeting adjourned at 5:15 pm and picked up again at 6 pm for the dinner and program. Tables were organized by book titles, so Margaret and I sat with other "Adventures of Tom Sawyer" people, while Karye and Linda were at a "Bless Me, Ultima" table. After we sat down, the waiter came over and opened up our cloth napkins and threw them in our laps (I think they were in a hurry to serve us), while a waitress spooned tiny amounts of salad dressing onto our salads for us. Next, they served us plates with chicken breast with melted cheese on top (I scraped off the cheese, yuck), angel hair pasta with chopped green and red pepper and green beans. For dessert, I had a piece of lemon chiffon cake and Margaret had a slice of chocolate mousse cake.

After dinner, David Kipen spoke again and gave a fun presentation showing how all the Big Read authors were somehow connected (think the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon). Next, keynote speaker Tim O'Brien (author of The Things They Carried, one of the newest Big Read titles) talked about how he gets his ideas and how he is so thankful for all the work librarians do for the Big Read. He shared some thought-provoking anecdotes and answered some questions from the audience, followed by a book signing. It was getting late, so we all trooped off to print out our boarding passes for our flights tomorrow.

The agenda for Wed is customized according to book title, so Margaret and I will start at 8:30 am with a break-out session on Successful Community Partnerships. We'll also attend presentations on Managing Public & Media Relations, Involving & Working with Schools, Permissions & Working with Publishers, and a discussion of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer programming ideas. At 2 pm, we'll reconvene with a presentation on The Big Read: Research & Evalution, the Big Read film called A Conversation with Rudolfo Anaya and a wrap-up with David Kipen and Christine Taylor. Whew! Then we'll leave for the airport and our 5:55 pm flight to Phoenix and then Ontario!

Hmmmm.......

What do you think of this? After we got back from the museum, Linda, Karye and I were browsing in a store called "Made in Minnesota." A young African American man came in while we were there and asked the clerk if they were hiring. She told him no. When we left the store, Linda pointed out that there was a sign in the front window that said "Salespeople wanted." Food for thought.

A Visit to the Children's Museum this morning!

The Minnesota Children's Museum is designed for ages 6 months to 10 years. The majority of children seemed to be in the 3-5 age range, although we saw kids that were about 7 or so. The museum was very interactive, and busy, but not too crowded. There were just enough there.

I liked the "Spark Cart" it is a do-it-yourself face painting station with small mirrors, paint and sponges. It was just outside the Clifford exhibit which was hugely popular.

Around 11 a.m. there was a costumed "Clifford, the Big Red Dog" that appeared, and lots of kids posed for photos taken by parents. Apparently Adventures with Clifford is a temporary exhibit running mid-February through mid-Sept. There is a giant Clifford on top of the museum building for advertising, and lots of themed books, clothing, and stuffed toys in the museum store.

There were some reading nooks in different areas, places to sit with a few picture books.

My favorite exhibit was "Our World" with the bus, world market, post office, Vietnamese restaurant, and medical clinic. It looked like fun :)

I also noticed anything with water seemed to be well-used. I liked the water theme within the "World Work" exhibit. There was something for all ages here; bubbles, water tubes, and a water wonder tot spot.

And the gigantic "ant farm" was very cute, kids could put on an ant costume (see photo) within "Earth World." There were a few live animals in this exhibits, including some large turtles swimming. Each exhibit seemed to have costumes, if the kids wanted to wear them. And most areas had handwashing sinks and air dryers.

On the walls I noticed there were inspirational quotations. On the rooftop garden the fence had the words: Sing, Transform, Play, Balance, Be. There was a tie-in with literacy through the words, quotations, and the book nook areas.

The museum store was much larger than expected. A nice selection of books, stuffed toys, etc...lots of "Clifford"themed merchandise.

The donor wall was just blocks on a wall, listing names. Nothing creative there, but it matched and blended well with the other wall signage.

The museum staff makes their own exhibits, there are also traveling exhibits loaned to other museums, and themed "trunks" for schools to borrow. The museum is open 7-days a week in the summer, closed on Mondays the remainder of the year. The building has an open, airy feel to it, as the entrance lobby is a wall of windows (glass) and the staircase is set back, so visitors can see the 5-levels of floors. There are some large hanging fish in the lobby. I have lots more photos to post. It was an interesting visit!

Exciting Events and Programs at the Minneapolis Children's Museum

Today was such a busy day, and it seemed to fly by! We began by checking out of the Hilton Minneapolis and moving over to the Hilton Marquette (there are so many people coming in for the Big Read Orientation that the grantees filled up two hotels!). After a nice breakfast at the Hilton, we headed off (with Linda at the wheel) in our red rental Kia towards the city of St. Louis, located about 20 mins from Minneapolis across the mighty Mississippi River.

Our destination was the Minneapolis Children's Museum, where we had a 10 am tour scheduled with Kylee Breems, the public relations and marketing coordinator. We parked in the World Trade Center parking lot kitty-corner from the Museum and since we were a bit early, took a little stroll up the top of the hill to get a better view of the State Capitol building. As we walked, we noticed that the Minnesota Public Radio station was across the street, with a news crawl along the side of the building ("California sues Target over landfill!").

We came back down the hill (the crosswalk lights are really short around here, so we had to walk really fast) and headed towards the museum. It's a 4-story building that takes up the entire city corner and guess who was on the top of the building: a giant-sized Clifford the big red dog! He was hard to miss! We entered the museum and went to the security desk to ask for Kylee. The guard gave us each a large, round black sticker to wear that said "Minnesota Children's Museum: Play to Learn, Learn to Play."

Shortly, Kylee came out and introduced herself and led Karye, Margaret, Linda and me up to the 4th floor to begin our tour. She began the tour at the Rooftop Art Park on the roof of the museum. We learned about the daily art activities offered in the glass-enclosed studio (today was water-color day), as well as the family art programs offered every Friday and the studio art classes held Mon-Sun from 10 am-1:30 pm. I really liked the art studio; everywhere you looked, you saw various art projects hanging from the walls, the ceilings, on clothespin lines and ceramics drying the kiln. While this might sound like it was disorganized, it gave the impression that anyone was welcome to come and start an art project anytime and have a great time.

The museum holds several daily programs besides the art activities, including Animal programs (today was Snake Day), Storytime in the atrium at 10 am, Big Fun! Shake Your sillies at 11:30 am and the Exploration Station, a drop-in water fun program from 10 am-2:30 am. Kylee said that the programs are planned by staff program developers, managed by an overseer and run by other staff and volunteers.

In addition to daily programs, the museum offers two types of birthday parties: Celebrations and Super Celebrations. For $160, the birthday child can invite 20 guests to join them at the museum and share cake, ice cream and juice. For $265, the birthday party includes all that plus a museum host, who will lead the children in a museum-themed activity.

Other special events include "Have Breakfast with Clifford the Big Red Dog" and "Paint the Town Red" art activities. There will also be a "Rooftop ArtPark Celebration" this month where families can plant their own "Plants have Feelings" plantings.

We asked Kylee if the museum held summer camps and she said not this year. They have also temporarily suspended school visits (due to financial considerations) and instead the museum offers an offsite education program where teachers visit classrooms with "Discovery Trunks." Kylee said this is a more affordable option for the schools.

After touring the museum, I thought that my favorite exhibits were:
-the ant farm play area: this is an area with caves, tunnels and paths where kids can don ant suits and pretend they are ants. I was really fascinated by ants as a child, and I guess I still am since I thought it looked like fun to crawl around and pretend you're an ant.
-the rooftop drop-in art area: I saw lots of kids and parents making papier-mache and no one told them they were making a mess (even though they were). How liberating to be creative and not worry about cleaning up!
-the animal area: it had a cozy fake fireplace and an x-ray machine, where kids would place x-ray pictures of various animals and see what they looked like inside. And they could put on little safari vests. Cool!
-face painting "spark cart" where kids got their own mirror and face paint and could apply their own design. They looked as if they were enjoying making their own creations on their own faces.
-the pretend bus in the Our World exhibit, complete with steering wheel and seats. There was a flat-screen tv on the side that showed flashing shots of the city and made it look as if the bus was moving. Very realistic!

We enjoyed our visit to the children's museum very much and I hope you've enjoyed learning more about the exciting events going on at this bustling place full of activity for children of all ages!

Pictures from the Minneapolis Children's Museum

I'll also add more detailswhen I get home. Overall impressions - very popular place for families; exhibits had lots of dress up opportunities and areas for little ones to play in while the older kids played; a wide age range from babies to preschoolers; huge exhibit areas; lots of stroller parking; fun place to explore; lots of volunteers and great signage.

This money collector attracts lots of kids and is cool! You put change at the top of the round thing and it spirals down to the center - strangely hypnotic I'm not sure what it's called but it's strategically located next to the entrance to the gigantic museum gift shop. Good way to collect extra money!

I was impressed by the look and signage of the museum. Here is the entrance to their huge gift store. The store was full of children's clothing, toys, water bottles, puzzles, all sorts of trinkets.






"Adventures with Clifford" - traveling exhibit developed by the Minneapolis Children's Museum in partnership with Scholastic.
The museum develops traveling exhibits which mostly travel to children's museums and science museums. They have a basement for storage and use V Corp. for production of their larger scale exhits. They also develop "Discovery Trunks" which they lend to schools.


Exterior picture of museum - featured Clifford and a gigantic advertisement for Target free nights every 3rd Sunday







"Curiosity Center" - craftroom with different projects depending on the themes of their exhibits. Plenty of craft materials availab
le and well used sink!






These fish were awesome! One of the best things I liked about the museum were these huge fish suspended from the ceiling - their fins and tails moved with the ventilation and looked amazing.










"Habitot" play area for children 6 months - 48 months - looks empty in this shot but the second time I went around it was packed! The Pond was a soft little area for babies, the Hills featured a slide, the forest had a little cave section with a quote "Hiding is almost important as being found."



The museum is very big - 65,000 square feet! 4 stories of very interactive exhibits which had cool stuff for older kids as well as babies. Two of their most popular permanent galleries were "World Works" and "Our World." "World Works" had a Paper Recycling Factory where kids could make new paper from old newspapers and press medallions from paper pulp.


"Rooftop Art Park" - tree house, glass studio (craft area for kids where time slots were reserved for Family Arts 6pm-7:30pm, and classes for kids 10am - 1:30, open exploration 2pm - 5pm), water painting exhibit, sandbox area; scent garden, and a weird color leaf exhibit where kids could attach different colored stips of fabric to fake vines (didn't seem too exciting for the kids.)






One of my favorite things at the musuem was the Spark Cart. Children could come up to the mobile cart and do facepainting using little premade kits of face paint. The cart was swamped whenever we passit it. Very popular and easy to maintain!






I really liked the museum signage! Creative use of materials.









Water Works exhibit from the "World Works" gallery. Several smaller water exhibits made up this gallery. A fun bubble area was very popular. To maintain the area, staff emptied out the water every night and cleaned the stations every night too. Notice the little aprons on the hooks? Every exhibit in the museum seemed to have a dress up component.

The "Our World" gallery was very impressive. The decor was set up like a little town (loved the road carpet.) Half of a Metro bus, A Uniform Shop, Our World Market, Studio Express, Post Office, Medical Clinic, and Community Gallery created a very dynamic and exciting atmosphere.

Kids were running around having a great time. They were dressing up in the uniform shop, using the blue screen in the Studio Express shaking maracas and dancing around because they could see themselves on the tv monitors. Their park area was in the middle of the exhibit where toddlers could use puzzles and do other activities while the older kids played inside the exhibits. One of the fun exhibits in here was the Asian restaurant featuring woks!

"Earth World" was huge and featured a section called the Ant Hill. Kids could dress up as ants and make their way through an ant hill. The area also featured a wide open area with big logs for kids to climb through and a loft area where they conducted animal related programs twice a week. They also played the sounds of birds chirping which gave the place more atmosphere.

More cute signage

The Paper Factory from the "World Works" area.

In the loft of the "Earth World" area, they hads books for kids to look through. The bookcase was located next to the area where they hold animal related programs 2 times a day

Lobby area - stairway to access upper floors, elevator to the right of the staircase. The security station is located where I am taking the picture. People are given stickers to indicate they have paid. It was a wide open and welcoming area. The big gift shop is located to the left of the entrance.

Minnesota Children's Museum

We started off early this morning to make it over the Mississippi River to St. Paul and the Minnesota Children's Museum. After navigating through major construction and lots of one-way streets, we made it to the museum four our tour. The museum is quite large - about 65,000 square feet spread out over five floors. The top floor contained a roof garden with plants chosen (and provided by a local nursery) for their scents, a tree house, sand pit and an indoor craft center.

The fourth floor was set up as an Earth Center with a fantastic Ant Farm exhibit were the kids got to put on ant costumes and work their way through the (kid sized) ant farm tunnels. It also included an animal area where they keep turtles, fish and snakes that they use in educational programs during the day. This Earth Center was one of my favorite exhibits at the museum. This floor also contained a Habitot center for babies ages 6 to 48 months that was based on the four natural eco-centers in the state. This area also had a quiet book room where parents and kids could have a quiet break.

The third floor held their meeting room where they hold birthday party celebrations. They can also rent out the room or use it for visiting classes. There is a large Exhibit Hall there that is being prepared for a science exhibit on circles. This museum has a basemment where they actually create many of their smaller exhibits that they use and rent out to other children's museums across the country.

The second floor was my favorite it contained a Paper Factory, the team-building crane area, the water section, another craft center and my favorite area of all - Our World. Our world was an enclosed area that represented the town environment, with a market, a Vietnamese restaurant, a Uniform store (where kids could become police or fire officers, doctors, and more), a TV studio, a medical center and other areas. That was the most crowded area in the museum with a lot of interactive play going on between all of the kids.

The second floor also held their smaller exhibit area. This is where they are currently holding a Clifford exhibit. This was a large, multi part exhibit that they created at the Minnesota Children's Museum over five years ago. It has been travelling for five years and is now finally back home and on display.

The museum has 350 active volunteers, with about 50 teen volunteers that they use during the summer. They have a full-time staff of 50 people and a part-time staff of 50 as well, that handle marketing, admin and finance, visitor staff, education, exhibit staff and creating, and membership and events. They have a crew of staff members who routinely go through the museum just to clean and sanitize areas. We must have seen at least three staff doing this while we were there.

Really an amazing, professional, yet incredibly user-friendly place!

We arrived in Minneapolis early evening. Easy flights, no turbulence, had to walk really fast in Phoenix to get the connecting flight. Cloudy, warm & humid here. Linda drove the rental car, which was no small task as many of the downtown streets are under construction. It took us a while to find the Hilton, but Casey and I both remembered the building with the music on the side (see photo), from last year's trip. Dinner in the hotel restaurant, Casey & Linda had steak, Margaret pasta w/shrimp, and I had a chicken pasta dish. Walked through the skywalk after dinner. Did you know most of the major buildings in the city are connected by a "skywalk." We have our plan for tomorrow starting with breakfast at 8 a.m. and then onto St. Paul and the Minnesota Children's Museum!

Nearby sites of interest...

If we have time we would like to visit a Hennepin County Library branch: www.hclib.org/locations. Another nearby site of interest is author Louise Erdrich's Birchbark Bookstore located in downtown Minneapolis, not far from the Big Read orientation site: http://birchbarkbooks.com/. Her newest book Plague of Doves has been selected as a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and is the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards winner for novel and short story. It looks like we will have plenty to do on our short trip!

What is The Big Read?

Just in case you're wondering what The Big Read is......it's an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and designed to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and bring the transformative power of literature into the lives of its citizens. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage citizens to read for pleasure and enlightenment. This initiative provides grants and comprehensive resources for discussing classic literature.

Look for more details about our upcoming Big Reads!

Minnesota Children's Museum

We'll also be visiting the Minnesota Children's Museum while we're in the area. It will be fun to see what they do and how we can apply what we see to our library!

The Big Read and Children's Museum adventure!

Casey, Karye, Linda and I will be heading off to Minneapolis June 15 to attend the 2009 Big Read orientation and visit the Minnesota Children's Museum. We'll focus on planning our Big Read events around the two books: Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.


We're lucky enough to arrive one day early to settle in. The orientation starts at 3pm on the 16th, so we'll have time to visit the children's museum in Minneapolis. Looking at their website it seems like it is a pretty cool place. Casey arranged a 10 am tour so we'll ask lots of questions and take lots of pictures!