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!