What are your best maker-based activities?

Like many children’s museums, the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum has a “maker” exhibit, where children can use tools (hammers, saws, drills, glue guns, etc) to make things. As I watch the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum educators develop prompts and activities for this area, I wonder if we are re-inventing the wheel. So many museums are…

What did I learn in my first year?

The Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum turned one year old last week. Amidst the birthday celebrations and thank you emails, I have been reflecting on the question: What did I learn from my first year as a museum director? What did we learn from the first year of operation of a new museum? I came up…

When are education materials good marketing materials?

Two museums are planning a joint marketing campaign around the theme of “exploration.” Both museums promote exploration as part of their mission; one has an upcoming exhibit on the theme of space exploration. The campaign will include a brochure, joint ticketing, and a social media campaign. Early on in this collaboration, the museums need to…

What does good staff training look like?

At the PlayHouse, we brought on two new managers this week. These managers are responsible for supervising front line, daily operations – things like opening and closing registers, making sure the museum is ready for visitors when we open, and toys and exhibits are cleaned and sanitized at the end of the day, and throughout…

Should Museums Celebrate the Holiday Season?

A few weeks ago, I walked into the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum to find floor staff creating a clever string of “lights” made of construction paper and cardboard tubes. They wanted to hang it from our tree – a big, fake oak tree that sits just inside our lobby, and is one of the first things…

What happens when parents join their kids in play, exploration and museum conversation?

This week’s post is by Amanda Nobis, a junior at Bradley University, and the first Research Intern at the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum. This summer I had the opportunity to help form a collaborative relationship between the Bradley University Psychology Department and the Peoria Playhouse Children’s Museum. I was invited to join the staff of…

Schools and Museums: Interview with Sarah Schertz

Sarah Schertz has a Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education from New York University. She was a part of the 2015 Peoria Playhouse Teacher Team. She teaches kindergarten at Methodist Family Child Care Center in Peoria, IL. Sarah brought her ten five- and six-year-old students to the museum for a…

Will this work?

Last week I wrote about exposure as a goal for field trips, and readers debated whether exposure was passive. As I stated in a reply to this post, I don’t think exposure is passive for the visitor, but I do think that it can be a way for the museum to be passive, by abdicating responsibility…

Why are children’s museums museums? – Take 2

As I emerge from the chaos of opening a new museum, I am still thinking about the question “Why are children’s museums museums?” which I blogged about in February. In that post I offered three ideas, which grew out of speaking with Barbara Meyerson and Elaine Heumann Gurian, and reading articles by Stephen Weil. In a…

Why are children’s museums museums?

In graduate school in the Museum Education Program at George Washington University (admittedly more years ago than I should admit to), the first semester was dedicated primarily to the idea of object-based learning. How does one teach with objects? How do you select objects for a tour investigating a larger theme? This course of study made sense,…

Museum Questions

Reflections on Museums, Programs, and Visitors

Children’s Museums