INDIANAPOLIS — Families across the country are searching for creative ways to spend quality time with their kids at home during social distancing. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis closed temporarily as a precautionary measure from March 14 – March 28, 2020, based on Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb’s request to limit gatherings to 250 people or less. While the museum will reevaluate its options at that time, it will provide fun, engaging content for families forced to stay home during social distancing as a result of COVID-19 (coronavirus).
The Children’s Museum is providing virtual tours, educational units of study and fun, whimsical things to do via social media. Parents, grandparents and care providers might be surprised to learn the world’s largest museum has resources that can be used in the classroom or for homeschooling. It is standards-based curriculum that covers a variety of topics. The best part is that each unit of study is written by trained educators. Anyone can use these study tools for free to learn more about dinosaurs, trains, science, art, humanities, health, fitness and more! The units of study are also broken down in to school grade levels so adults can choose content that best fits their child’s age.
The Children’s Museum’s educators and family experience teams are also hard at work creating content that families can access via the museum’s social media channels. It is called the Museum at Home program. Here are a few of the topics included:
• Real Science Videos: DIY (do it yourself) science experiments that families can do at home.
• Facebook Live Chats with Experts: Engage live with museum experts on topics from science to art and more!
• Preschool story time: Listen to a story read by one of The Children’s Museum Preschool teachers.
• Museum in a Minute: This segment presents a quick walkthrough of each exhibit at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
• Morning workout: Families may be forced to self-quarantine; but, they can keep active by working out with trained coaches from the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience.
• Curate A Collection: This video series with The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis’ curators provides tips on how children can start their own collections at home.
• Museum trivia: Learn some history and little-known facts about The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis and the museum’s collection of more than 130,000 artifacts.
• Interpretive shows: Videos from some of the interpretive experiences in the museum’s exhibits—many of which include trained, costumed actor interpreters.
• Morning greeting from Rex: Receive a morning high five from the museum’s lovable Tyrannosaurus rex mascot, Rex.
Visit www.childrensmuseum.org, follow on Twitter @TCMIndy, Instagram@childrensmuseum, YouTube.com/IndyTCM, and Facebook.
