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!