A (Free) Museum Day!

Have you heard about this? I just read about Museum Day in my homeshool support group's newsletter. You can learn more at Smithsonian.com, but the gist of it is:

"Museum Day is a nationwide event taking place on Saturday, September 29, 2007 where participating museums and cultural institutions across the country offer free admission to Smithsonian readers and Smithsonian.com visitors, allowing for one day only, the free-admission policy of Smithsonian's Washington, D.C.-based facilities to be emulated across the country."

You can find out what museums are participating in your state here. Here in Massachusetts we have a LOT to choose from! I am very torn between the MFA and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. We've been to the former (though not in many years) but we've never visited the latter. Either would be great fun!

This, of course, means I'll be making up a basket full of books about museums! A few I have in mind:

• Micawber (Squirrels and fine art, how could I resist? Thanks, Mary Ann, for the tip!)
• You Can't Take a Balloon in the Museum of Fine Arts
• Museum ABC
• Museum 123
• Museum Shapes
• Babar's Museum of Art
• Behind the Museum Door
• The Night at the Museum

Oh, and I just might stick in a copy of Night at the Museum for a fun movie night, too! ;)

I also remember a wonderful article on museum trips in an old issue of Martha Stewart Kids (why, oh, why they ever stopped publication is beyond me). I couldn't find a link to it, so here are some tips I gleaned from the article, which was authored by Theresa Robinson. And I must note, I offer these tips fully realizing that many of you are, in fact, seasoned and intrepid museum visitors; city-driving chicken that I am though, we are decidedly not. ;)

These are not my words, but straight from the article itself. I'm just quoting the sections I zipped with my highlighting pen:

(Some) parents seem to believe that a gallery-by-gallery six-hour grand tour is the only way to "get their money's worth" from the trip. In truth, the best way for you to benefit from museum visits with kids is to reset your priorities. Make it a goal to find one astonishing sculpture, one painting that prompts a conversation, one eye-opening exhibit. Then, leave if you'd like.

"Establishing a relationship with museums is the first step for children in their development of an aesthetic sense - their idividual appreciation of artistic beauty," says Sharon Shaffer, executive director of the Smithsonian Early Enrichment Center in Washington, D.C.

Gather information from the library or Internet about the exhibits you will be seeing, and talk about them in advance.

The museum's education department is a great resource for guides and brochures.

If your child will want to draw pictures or take photographs, call ahead and inquire about any restrictions.

(Neat website: www.museumstuff.com)

When you arrive, take a few moments to look over a map of the museum with your child.

Ask open-ended questions about what she is seeing. Jot down your child's own questions as they arise; part of the fun will be going home and finding the answers together.

A plastic sandwich bag hung on a clipboard with binder clips keeps colored pencils close at hand for making sketches or jotting down details like names and dates.

When you get home ... Set up a museum shelf or corner in your child's room where she can hang her own artwork and arrange exhibitions of objects ... Many children have a natural tendency to "curate" their own little exhibitions - selecting and arranging favorite items from among their possessions so that they go together somehow. Support and encourage this instinct; it teaches kids that by grouping objets in certain ways, they can tell particular stories.

I love this last idea most of all! I think a museum-themed learning center would be a great way to follow up our visit. Wherever we end up going, I am sure it will be a fun day -once we get past all that traffic, lol. So where do you think you'll go?

Before I go, I want to link to Cindy's Loveliness of Summer Vacations Fair. What a perfect week to relax and reflect on that time-honored tradition of family togetherness. I will have to live vicariously through all of Cindy's links since we, ahem, have not had a vacation in ... um, years? Yes, we're all about the day-trips around here, and speaking of - we're heading to the beach at the end of the week! Still, there's nothing quite like a summer vacation, is there?

Also, one more bit of housekeeping - is anyone having trouble with my blog loading or being slow? My friend Tami is having a terrible time with it (particularly, it seems, with my banner) and we want to figure out if the problem lies within my blog or her computer. Thanks in advance for your help.

Well, I'm off for now - to shuck some corn, grill some burgers and wash up a dish or two. I hope you all have a great last week of summer. :)