Where in the World?

To build off of our geography day, Where in the World?, we want to emphasize the importance of exposing your kids to other cultures. During this summer drop-in day at The Children’s Museum in Easton, we were able to explore many aspects of the world’s geography and cultures. Various activities helped educate kids about our planet’s water supply and soil erosion, giving them an important outlook on our planet. Visitors to the Museum made flags from different countries, and we had additional arts and crafts that allowed kids to become more aware of where they are in the world. Also, there was a fun game of geography twister that was a huge hit!

With the passports you have created at the Children’s Museum, you can continue to add and mark places you and your kids have explored. It is easy to learn about various cultures without having to actually travel. Cooking and tasting foods from other countries is an excellent place to start at home! It can become a weekly tradition with your kids as you mark the different countries of which you’ve explored in the kitchen. Laying out a map and marking the countries or stamping in their passports will be a reminder of each unique experience. 

Geography Twister

It is simple to investigate authentic cuisines from around the world; doing so by setting the scene at home for your kids to really imagine what it's like in other countries can be a great eye-opening experience. You can get started by searching online about various cultures and their recipes or visiting your local library. Trying a different cultural restaurant or visiting the international isle in any grocery store is also a simple way to investigate various countries’ foods with your kids. Try some of these food recipes from around the world!

Not able to attend our day of exploring the world at the Museum? You can easily make your own passport at home by using an old notebook or simply stapling a few sheets of paper together. In addition, try some of the following educational at-home activities!

Helping your kids become more aware of where they are in the world is so important. Explaining the different times zones, exploring how different cultures dress (traditional clothing print out), and even learning a few words (50 ways to say hello) in other languages are excellent places to start at home. Doing so, can help your children become more aware of just how big the world around them really is. Visiting your local library is a fantastic place to begin exploring other cultures with your kids as well.

Free Fun Friday 2015

The Children’s Museum in Easton is pleased share our success from participating in the Highland Street Foundation’s Free Fun Friday for the fifth consecutive summer. As you may know, Free Fun Friday is a wonderful program that offers visitors a no cost admission to many of the most treasured cultural institutions in Massachusetts.Since 2009, “Free Fun Friday” has drawn more than half a million visitors to venues throughout the Commonwealth. In 2014 alone, the program reached 150,000 people. This year, we are proud to be among the 70 participating institutions. The Museum hosted about 1,600 people for a day filled with arts and crafts, along with fun outdoor activities. For a complete schedule of Free Fun Friday click here.

Kids show off Free Fun Friday
sunglasses outside in the Wild Place

Inside the MakerSpace

Guests were able to explore our three floors of interactive and educational activities. Our new MakerSpace was a huge hit! Every room of our Old Fire Station was filled with children playing and learning. In addition to exploring indoor exhibits, visitors were also excited to discover our outdoor Wild Place on the beautiful sunny Friday afternoon. Along with arts and crafts and other fun outdoor activities, we had a raffle set up for kids to win a stuffed-Dalmatian.

Be sure to click here to check out what else the Children's Museum in Easton has to offer! 

We were pleased to have the U.Fund Dreams Tour join us again this year on our Free Fun Friday day at the Children’s Museum in Easton. The goal of the U.Fund Dreams Tour is for parents to invest in a secure savings account for their child’s future. U.Fund explains all of the components of the savings plans through the interactive “activity pavilion.” To learn more about the specifics of the U.Fund savings plans click here.

U.Fund Activity Pavillion

The “activity pavilion” on the U.Fund Dreams Tour was a key attraction on the Museum’s Free Fun Friday day. The pavilion engages both kids and parents, encouraging adults to plan for the child’s future education. The children are able to choose a profession they want to be when they grow up, and then pose for animated photos. While kids are playing games that teach them to “aim for the moon” and posing for pictures, parents are able to gauge where they are financially with regards to saving for their child’s future. The U.Fund Dreams Tour introduces families to savings programs and plans in a fun interactive environment. Overall, Free Fun Friday at the Children’s Museum in Easton was a huge success. 

How to Stay Active and Healthy in the Summer Time

Summertime is the best time to start becoming more physically active. With all the extra time your child has its important to make sure they have fun during summer vacation but also that they stay happy, active and healthy.

Here are some ways to stay active and healthy in the summer:

Keep them Hydrated:

It’s obvious that staying hydrated during summer time is important, but it is not always easy to get them to drink as much water as they should. Here are some tips that can help you:

• Fruit Infused Water: By letting delicious fruits soak in water it makes a plain drink more delicious! You can also purchase cool looking fruit infused water bottles made just for kids!
•  Schedule more drink breaks: Get your child in the habit of taking water breaks throughout the day and it will soon become routine. This is especially important if your child is participating in a lot of physical activities throughout the day.
•  Popsicles: Try to get some with low sugar so your kids can stay hydrated with less sugar. You can also make popsicles fun by looking up recipes to make them with your kids!

Engage with nature:

Marla and her Falconry bird Mack from The New England Reptile and Raptor Show

The Children’s Museum in Easton recently had Bigfoot summer drop in day, which focused on nature and ways to have fun in your backyard. The New England Reptile and Raptor show had an interactive performance where children learned about the cool creatures that live right in their backyard. They even got the chance to meet the animals up close!

 The performance also taught visitors about bones and how they differ for each animal. Their new found knowledge about  nature helped children create amazing Bigfoot dioramas that Bigfoot himself would love to call home! Visitors also made a Bigfoot expedition kit which would help them catch Bigfoot and many other creatures that may be nearby. The Bigfoot obstacle course was also a huge hit because it allowed children to literally “walk in Bigfoot’s shoes”!

 

All these activities promoted learning about nature and inspired creativity. The Bigfoot drop in day allowed Children to learn and be active in ways that they enjoyed. Children were able be active while exploring their surroundings and learning.  Many children left the museum happy and eager to continue their search for Bigfoot.

Attending Bigfoot day isn't the only way to have your children engage with nature. Make every day an adventure and start exploring wherever you can, which leads me into our next tip for staying healthy and active in the summer.

Make sure your child gets daily exercise:

It may seem like something obvious, but the summertime is when children become less physically active. On hot days it can be tempting to stay inside and sit around all day, but there are many ways to make sure your child gets daily exercise in the summer. Here’s what you can do:

•  Take walks to the local store to buy Popsicles and cool down.
• Go for a swim to stay active and cool down.
• Go on at least three bike rides a week.
• On rainy days instead of staying in and watching movies turn on some music and get your groove on!
• Visit your local park and play games such as, Frisbee, basketball, or soccer.

Hopefully all these tips help you and your children have a healthy and happy summer and remember you can always stop by the Children’s Museum in Easton to have a healthy and happy summer!

*Written by Love Boussiquot, PR Intern

Summer Fun for Everyone: Tie Dye, Magic, and Smiling Faces

Summer can be a fun but difficult time. The weather is nice, there are tasty cold treats, and beach trips can consume your weekends. However, in between enjoying all the summer fun there are days when children get bored and antsy. Sometimes playing at home isn’t enough for them and they want to do more.

Every Thursday and Friday the Museum hosts its Summer Drop in Days that bring fun to a whole new level! All drop in day events are free with Museum admission, and each Drop in Day is centered on a different topic.  Performers and different creatures visit the Museum and teach kids about a variety of different topics. Princess, Pirates, Puppies, and snakes are all great examples of the different types of visitors the Museum gets on Drop in Days.

 All of our Drop in Days include hands on craft activities like our Tie Dye day. July 10^th visitors of the Museum got to tie dye shirts with assistance from our helpful volunteers. The tie-dying took place from 9am-3pm in the Museum’s outdoor space The Wild Place. Visitors had a blast learning how to tie dye. In addition to being a fun activity children also learned the importance of following rules and being patient. 

After tie-dying families toured the Museum indoors and outdoors where they continued to have more fun! Some kids chose to play with dinosaurs, some decided to build cool new contraptions and some slid down the fire pole, but by the end of the day everyone left here happy and satisfied!

We also recently had an incredible magic show performed by the Amazing Magic Matt! Matt is also the official magician for the Boston Red Sox, so if you go to a game this summer keep an eye out for him! Matt’s show included so many amazing magic tricks involving ribbons, balloons, cards and many more interesting objects. Many kids who attended said some of their favorite parts were Matt’s egg trick and card trick. With help from the crowd Magic Matt put on a show that everyone would remember.

Matt was the experienced magician on stage but plenty of his little helpers seemed to have what it took to be a magician superstar! Brody was in attendance for the second show and had actually served as one of Matt’s helpers! Though the “Knot trick” was his favorite, when I spoke with Brody he said he had a fun time on stage and loved everyone clapping for him. As someone who seemed very shy when I spoke to him, he lit up the crowd with excitement with his humor and energy. Brody loved the magic show so much he hopes to maybe try some tricks at home! Brody is a perfect example of magic Matt’s wise words. “Everyone has a little pixie dust” and as long as Brody has his he’ll continue to make people happy. 

If you missed this Summer Drop in, or are looking for more fun click here for more Summer Drop in info!

*Written by Love Boussiquot PR intern