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Today we have a special guest blogger, Eileen Ogintz. She is a nationally syndicated travel columnist and a leading family travel expert. We're very excited to have a special Children's Museum post from Eileen! Visit TakingtheKids for more travel tips.
By Eileen Ogintz
One minute and 45 seconds.
That’s all the time museum officials say they’ve got at an exhibit to capture young kids’ interest and attention.
Of course the more the adults with themare engaged and involved, the longer kids will spend on an exhibit and the more they’ll remember.
That’s why exhibits here at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis are designed for adults and kids to explore together. Did you know this is only one of three children’s museums in the country that collects artifacts—over 120,000, in fact, some on loan from other museums around the world. Before you come, take a virtual tour with the kids and decide what you want to see. (Make sure each child gets a pick. If you’ve got more than one adult in the group and kid with different interests, divide up when you arrive.)
Take time to look with the kids at some of the collections—whether it’s Ryan White’s room in the Power of Children or original Barbie dolls or Captain Kidd’s cannon—the only pirate cannon ever retrieved from a shipwreck in the Caribbean—in the new Treasures of the Earth exhibit.
Let the kids lead the way and encourage discussion about what you are seeing. What would you do if you saw a friend being bullied—or worse? You can’t help but talk about that when you walk through the Power of Children exhibit and see youngsters have endured.
How different—and how similar—is your life from that of a family living in Egypt? Who exactly was Captain Kidd or Pharaoh Seti I and what do all those funny symbols on the wall of his tomb mean?
If this is your first visit, you’ll be surprised how different this children’s museum may be than others you have visited—that there is as much here for you as your kindergartner or preschooler.
That’s why it’s important to take your time. Don’t rush from checking out the juvenile dinosaurs to checking out Barbie fashions to listening to an actor interpret what it was like to live in war torn Amsterdam under the Nazi regime.
You can’t possibly see everything in one visit so relax and focus on what interests your kids and you the most. Maybe you have a young dino lover who wants to spend all his time in that one exhibit, even dressing up as a dinosaur. Maybe you have a young fashionista who wants to be in a fashion show or design her own doll clothes in the Barbie exhibit Maybe all your child wants to do is dig for ancient treasure.
Let them! You’ll all have much more fun and learn more too if you aren’t rushing around. Remember, you can always come back. The museum will be here.
Copyright 2011 Eileen Ogintz
(Note: Eileen's TaingtheKids family travel guides have just been reissued for the NOOK and Kindle. You can buy individual chapters for as little as 99 cents.)
