Ever needed an extra pair of hands?

Trizia Wells, Helping Hands Project Lead

Is it really only 3 months since my last blog? Helping Hands has been zooming along since then, with two more Saturday Clubs, some fantastic parent focus groups, visits to special schools, training, training and more training - and last but by no means least, the launch of Eureka!'s unique Extra Pair of Hands Service.


Extra Pair of Hands (or, as I like to call it, EPOH) is unique in the UK.  There you are, a busy parent outnumbered by your children and trying to come up with an enjoyable, playful learning activity. To make life more difficult, one little darling likes indoors stuff and another wants to let off steam outside.  Where can you go so that everyone’s happy? (including you!) That’s easy - Eureka!


But for a family with a disabled child, the next round of questions is just beginning.  Your child uses a wheelchair, and has a hearing impairment. They are highly sensitive to flashing lights – and crowds! You’re not convinced you’ll be able to get them through the door, and once you do, will they be able to play with the exhibits along with their siblings? Can they get round all the galleries? Are there changing facilities? A quiet space to go if it all gets too much? If only you could talk beforehand to someone who really knows the museum, who can answer your questions, maybe even give you a hand on the day.

Well now you can! Families book their Extra Pair of Hands visit two weeks in advance, and the EPOH Enabler (Enablers are the amazing team that work here in the museum - enabling play!) not only gets in touch to answer all those questions, but will give them a hand for two hours on the day of their visit. 


It seems such an obvious and simple idea that you might wonder what the catch is. Well, having spent March and April piloting the service with Enablers and parents, I can report that I haven’t found one yet! 


One family visited with a little boy, we’ll call him Henry, who has a severe visual impairment.  Henry has visited Eureka! a couple of times before with his sister, but they never went in together – he would only play in the outside space. He could sense a lot of activity and noise inside, but not being able to see past the highly reflective windows and doors caused him a great deal of anxiety. That meant that his sister – we’ll call her Emma - had only ever visited Eureka! with one of her parents – the other always had to stay with Henry.  Henry and Emma had never played inside Eureka! together.

Our EPOH Enabler, Becky, spoke to Henry’s mum beforehand and together they planned the visit. Becky met the family at the start of Eureka!'s yellow brick road, armed with stickers and a smile. The first 15 minutes was spent in the outside space – Becky, Henry and his sister had great fun running round the sensory garden, sniffing the herbs and following the sound of the wind chimes.  Becky built up Henry’s confidence so that he was happy then to go inside Eureka! for the first time.


Becky’s expert knowledge of the museum, our resources, the way children learn through play, and her previous conversation with Henry and Emma’s mum, meant that she could steer the family away from areas that might have caused anxiety, as well as capitalise on those the children particularly enjoyed. When she saw how much Henry liked playing in our Sound Space gallery, she brought out a set of drums for the two children to play with, which kept them thoroughly entertained for ages.


In the family’s words, they “had an absolutely brilliant time, and we’ll definitely be coming back”. Becky got a real buzz out of being able to work so closely with Henry and Emma and help the whole family enjoy their visit. In fact all the EPOH Enablers who did the pilot have requested to be first in line for families booking the service.


Other lovely things that the pilot families said:

• “Our Enabler showed us things in Eureka! we’d never seen before – we were blown away!”
• “Our EPOH gave ten times the value to a normal visit”
• “My (autistic) son can’t wait to go back again, normally he doesn’t like anywhere new”

So what was it that Becky (and Karys and Ross, our other EPOH Enablers) did to make their time at Eureka! so enjoyable? They asked questions, listened to the answers and made suggestions. Parents know their children’s needs best, but they might not know all the ways that Eureka! can offer a playful learning experience. The Enablers’ training and expertise meant they can help families plan a visit that brings the two together.


Suggestions don’t have to be costly
The Enablers offered small, practical solutions – stickers to help Henry think of Eureka! as a happy place to be; ear defenders for the autistic child who was sensitive to sound; meeting the family of a wheelchair-using child at the car to help them into the museum. Suggestions which cost nothing more than thought and time. 

Try before you buy
Families who already have an annual pass can book two EPOH visits per year, but here’s the other unique thing about the service – if you don’t have an annual pass and you’re really not sure about laying out a load of dosh to visit somewhere you’ll never go back to – you can still try out our Extra Pair of Hands service. Just ring and book your visit two weeks in advance and, on the day, your visit will be free. We are confident that you will have had such a good time that you will want to return – and then you can buy an annual pass and book your second EPOH visit! 


Word is spreading fast about Extra Pair of Hands and we’re taking bookings now. Initial feedback is very positive, and I am sure this unique service is going to be very popular with families of disabled children. I am looking forward to telling you lots of lovely EPOH stories and bringing you lots of pictures in my next blog!


Trizia Wells
Helping Hands Project Lead 


The Extra Pair of Hands Service is part of Eureka's Helping Hands Project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Eureka! inspires 'Creativity in the Classroom'

At Eureka! we are known for our commitment to making learning the fun, exciting activity that we believe it should be; whether it’s here in the museum or out in the community with one of our outreach activities/shows. Manchester Metropolitan University decided that it would be great if we could pass on some of our ideas and enthusiasm to some of their student teachers at their conference about creativity in the classroom. We agreed, and enlisted the help of Captain Sam (the Scurvy suffering pirate) and me (otherwise known as Flora Explorer) and we headed west.

Captain Sam, aka. Darren

After a brief introduction to Eureka! (Who we are and what we do) from Jenny Goodall, our Play & Learning Assistant, it was over to us. Our first section highlighted the fun that a bit of drama, song, and dance can bring to learning. Captain Sam (that was Darren Fearnley - pictured, by the way) set the scene and then it was all hands to the deck (pardon the pun) as we got the students on their feet joining in with the ‘Scurvy Song’; a swashbuckling sea shanty with a riotous dance that tells the true story of Dr Lind’s clinical trial; which succeeded in discovering the cure for scurvy. (Not gargling with sulphuric acid, as it turns out!).


Next Flora (that’s me, remember) demonstrated the effective use of multi-sensory learning as she dived into her explorer’s bag and pulled out an assortment of spices – not just the boring powdered stuff but the actual parts of the plant; Vanilla seed pods, nutmeg nuts, cinnamon bark, cloves (dried flower buds) and a whopping great piece of ginger (which is a rhizome, or underground stem, if you’re interested). The students listened to me talking about the spices and read about where they came from on little cards, but the best bit was actually touching and smelling – or maybe it was the bit where I produced a packet of ginger biscuits so they could involve their sense of taste as well!


We produced some giant laminated coins to demonstrate that even ‘sums’ can be fun if you are playing a game and then went on to play with science – with some colourful, explosive, messy and amazing demonstrations.
The students were really receptive and asked lots of questions so I am sure that at least some of the things they saw will be finding their way into classrooms in the future. I felt it was a very worthwhile trip and the university agreed, giving us the following feedback:

"I just want to thank you for your excellent workshop. The evaluations were very positive and in the final session when the students were sharing their experiences, they discussed the workshop with enthusiasm."

I love the thought of enthusiastic teachers because if teachers are having fun teaching then children will be having fun learning – and that’s the ideal.


Jill Ward, Eureka! Enabler

Clowning 101 – The Eureka! way

Play is at the heart of everything that we do here at Eureka!, and one of the ways we thought we could bring even more play into the workplace and museum generally was through clowning - Not your average face paint, big shoes and pie in the face clowning, but by bringing the ideologies and techniques behind the performance into our day-to-day museum duties. So Clown Training 101 was devised and, with a handful of enablers, the Eureka! Clowning team was born. We began by looking at Victorian clowns from the travelling circuses up to modern day stereotypical clowns, and their archetypes and lives. We then took some of the elements of clowning and created our own ways of clowning.

What makes a Eureka! clown

Our clowns are childlike in their attention to things: everything is new and amazing - they explore every object to its full extent. They are imaginative and creative - everything can be anything to a clown - a shoe is a telephone, a scarf is a bridge, and even a flute is a stethoscope.

They are repetitive. They will try things out again and again, often to fail, over and over again; no matter how many times they see that banana skin, they will always slip on it.

Clowning is the most emotionally honest form of performance; they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Clowns laugh, cry, show their joy and despair through their very emotional facial expressions.

And, most importantly, a clown is a direct link to the audience. During a performance they break the fourth wall by acknowledging the audience, showing things to them and even getting audience members involved in their antics.

Jill, Tasha and Ross discover something shocking!

Wearing the red nose

After our research and a few warm-up exercises we were given our red clowning noses. We were not to take these off as they were the prop that marked us as clowns.

Clowns are very silly - they are the subject of ridicule, and if we wished to be clowns we had to be silly. This was quite daunting for some of the group as they did not want to look like fools in front of their team leaders, colleagues and friends. In an attempt to break down everybody's inhibitions we were told to pick a space in the theatre. The music started, and we had to take to the stage as clowns, looking at the audience and fully exploring the stage (ignoring the other clowns at first). A variety of strange props were thrown into the spaces such as hats, wigs, instruments and toys. We had to work with these props, using them as something they weren't actually made for, which must have been quite a sight for the team leaders watching - grown adults wearing red noses, with wigs as shoes and recorders used as a splint for a poorly finger! We then had to interact with the other clowns, making up little scenarios, whilst looking at and involving the audience, emphasising our emotions and facial expressions.

Becky looks on in horror as Darren & Claire are stuck on the other side of the gorge!

All restraint, inhibition and hesitation was now long gone and everyone was buzzing. We all had the techniques nailed and were in a great mood - making jokes, laughing along with everyone and offering ideas and suggestions to each other. As a final performance we were split into three teams of three, each given a scenario and asked to devise a performance: at first just improvising with the music, then structuring a beginning, middle and end. The three scenarios were:

1. There is a massive gorge that the clowns want to cross, but there is no bridge.
2. One clown is having a picnic when the other two appear, then one fly appears, followed by a swarm of insects attacking the clowns.
3. One clown has an illness, and eventually the other two catch it.

Becca, Dan and Abi notice the first of many flies to come and ruin their picnic

I was in group number 2, the picnic group. After a few run-throughs we decided that one clown should have the picnic all to himself, then the other two came but he would not share his picnic. The flies gradually appeared, one at a time, and the clowns began slapping themselves and each other in an attempt to get rid of the flies, which resulted in the picnic getting trodden on. Realising that the picnic had been ruined, the two clowns left the original clown alone with the remains of his picnic. By using a bit of slapstick, looking at the audience and exaggerating expressions we created a funny and successful 5 minute performance.

Bringing clowning into every day

After all three groups had performed we settled down and began to think about how we could  incorporate the clowning ideas into museum life, such as:

• Using audience participation and acknowledgement during our science shows and workshops.
• Exaggerating our expressions and actions to make things more exciting to watch.
• Bring some of the playfulness into our time in the galleries - act as if everything is new to us, therefore more exciting for us and the children there who really are experiencing objects for the first time.
• Devising a clowning show which we enablers can perform on an Up To You hour or as an event for the public, where we can get families involved in creating their own clowning show based on everything we learnt during the training.  This would be different from our existing 'Clowning Around' workshop, which is aimed at more traditional clowning with big costumes, facepaint and using props such as fake weights and rubber chickens.

  The Eureka! Clowning School's first graduates!

Our Clowning session has really given everyone involved such a boost to our ways of working, giving us new ideas and increased confidence in performing. We have loads of ideas about new things we can do in the galleries and ways to interact with kids - even the simplest of ideas such as putting on our red noses is full of potential for a better visitor experience.

Come and join us for a bit of Clowning Around in January 2012.

Becca McAusland

Enabler and Exhibitions Assistant

Welcoming Brownies, Cubs and Beavers to Eureka!

This November we’ve had a busy month with a number of special events for uniformed groups.

Over the first two weekends of November we welcomed 868 Brownies, Beavers, Cubs and their leaders to the museum to take part in the first ever Eureka! Badge Days. In previous years we’ve run badge days based on such themes as astronomy and circus skills but thought that this time we’d see if we could come up with something based around the themes explored in Eureka!

 
The Eureka! badge
The design of the badge (pictured) was inspired by the man behind the Eureka! name - Archimedes himself and the special one-day events were created to allow children to explore as much of the museum as possible, inspiring them to discover and learn through play.

Chew to the Poo
The highlight of the sessions was definitely our science show ‘From the Chew to the Poo’ which explores the ins and outs of our digestive system by following the journey of a banana and peanut butter sandwich from the moment it is eaten till the moment it is… …well you can guess the rest!

It was certainly a challenge coming up with a programme that really sums up the essence of the museum but I hope we managed it. We’ve had some great feedback from leaders so far and with one or two tweaks I think we’ll definitely be planning to do more Eureka! Badge days in the future.

A Night at the Museum

The other big event this month was our Sleepover on Friday 18th November. We haven’t held a sleepover here since March 2008, so many of the staff have never experienced spending the night in the museum and were just as excited as the children! It was great fun and all the children and group leaders really got into the spirit of the evening. The night can best be summed up by Stephanie Armitage of 3rd Yeadon Brownies who wrote…

"Eureka! hosted a brilliant sleepover which was attended by around 100 Brownies, Scouts and their leaders to celebrate Universal Children's Day.

The evening was packed with fun including clowning around, a splash workshop which was a fun, water-based science session (see the giant bubbles photos) and having the museum to ourselves to explore all evening. Arriving just after 6pm, we were looked after by the Eureka! team until midnight when it was lights out time!

The girls and leaders had a brilliant time. The Eureka! staff were great fun & had organised an excellent evening of scientific fun. After supper everyone joined in with a selection of songs including the Meatball Song and Crazy Moose. It was great bedding down in the floor in the 'Sound Section' of the museum. The clunks and creaks of the building cooling down didn't seem to stop the girls getting to sleep. They were exhausted after such an action packed evening so even Brown Owl's snoring didn't disturb them. Other leaders and their groups were dotted around the building. The Eureka! staff slept upstairs in their offices!"

We’re holding two more sleepovers in 2012 on Friday 16th March and Friday 18th May, and we still have spaces available on both. These all night extravaganzas are open to schools as well as uniformed groups and are suitable for children aged 8-11yrs. For more information please email Jenny Parker.

You can view soe more photos from the sleepover in our Facebook Photo Album.

For further information about Girlguiding and how to join please visit the Girlguiding UK Website.

Jenny Parker, Eureka! Play and Learning Co-ordinator

Volunteering at Eureka!

Over the summer I volunteered at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum in Halifax. When I first started volunteering I hardly interacted with the children at all, but now I feel more than capable of meeting and engaging with children.

I have enjoyed volunteering very much, especially meeting children of different ages and from different backgrounds. I found working in the gift shop enjoyable, and learned all about the different aspects of the job from stock take, the paperwork required to make a gift shop run, keeping the shop fully stocked at all times, pricing, and customer interaction. I have also loved working with all the different exhibits, and have found that it has helped me to gain more confidence, particularly to interact with children and their parents.

The Eureka! Shop

I have done so much but, for me, my biggest successes are that I am more confident in myself and I have learned many transferable skills, from making action plans to improving my interpersonal skills, to name but a few. I also feel that my biggest achievement has been being able to work as a part of a team as, again, it has helped boost my confidence both with children and with the Eureka! staff.

I also feel that I can use these experiences in the future to help me with my autism. I have loved working at Eureka! as I found the environment calming and safe. I hope that the time I have spent at Eureka! and the experiences that I have gained will help me progress along the career path that is right for me. All the staff have been extremely friendly and helpful.

Eureka! is a fun and friendly place to work, and I highly recommend this experience to anybody else thinking about volunteering.

Michael Harris, Eureka! volunteer

Serious play

I could begin this blog by saying: ‘Here at Eureka we take training our staff very seriously’, because we do. But ‘serious’ suggests lectures, assessments, boredom and other things that are, well, serious! This was certainly not the case when it came to our ‘It’s Up To You’ training this month. Creative, spontaneous and hilarious are more like it.

Creative staff training helps inspire our Enablers when delivering programmes.

We were training our staff for something called the ‘It’s Up To You’ Hour. The idea was trialled last year and gave our Enablers a whole hour during the day in which they could do whatever they liked; tell a story, run a juggling workshop, take musical instruments into the galleries or other things of that nature. We found that our staff had many hidden talents which emerged through this initiative and the ‘Its Up To You Hour’ generated some of the best customer feedback we received in years. So we decided to re-launch the idea this year, timed with the hiring of a whole new batch of Enablers.

For the training we collected a vast number of resources; costumes, storybooks, props, and other diverse items. We then put the Enablers into groups and gave them the freedom to devise a full days worth of events using what we had in the room or anything they could find from the museum.

Complete freedom, however, can be intimidating, so we gave each group a simple scenario detailing how many visitors were in the museum and what the weather was like on the day they were planning for. This helped to inspire some of the events and made the enablers think about whether a particular event is suitable for varying visitor numbers.

‘We all need empty hours in our lives or we will have no time to create or dream’

The quote from child psychiatrist and author Robert Coles sums up or philosophy when executing the session. Creating a stimulating environment where the staff felt free to do what they wanted worked far better than having a structured training schedule as it gave them room to ‘Create and Dream’, though our hours were far from empty.

There was no shortage of ideas; staff devised a range of different activities, from manic games involving water balloons to quiet and calm origami folding. In this setting the Enablers were empowered to show off their many talents as musicians, magicians or historians.

Fun was had by all and this fun atmosphere will be directly passed onto our visitors who can expect varied spontaneous events and activities in our galleries in the future (particularly on weekends and quiet afternoons)!

So as we see training is a very important part of being an Enabler at Eureka, but I still wouldn’t say that ‘At Eureka we take training our staff very seriously’; I would rather say that ‘At Eureka we take training our staff very playfully’.

Ben Healey is a Team Leader at Eureka! The National Children's Museum

A day of inventor’s training with Wallace and Gromit

The BBC and Aardman Animations Ltd (the people who make Wallace and Gromit) came up with an idea for some ‘Invention Sessions’ based on one of Wallace’s own inventions, ‘the run-about steam chair’ shown in Wallace and Gromit’s World of Invention to excite and inspire young inventors all over the country. After taking the sessions on the road to various shopping centres across the country they have now passed the baton on to a handful of science and discovery centres to continue what they began. Eureka! was chosen to be one of those centres – how exciting for us!

It was especially exciting for me and my colleague Jennie as we were the ones who got to go down to BBC television centre in London to meet Wallace and Gromit and learn all they had to teach us about delivering the sessions. Well, actually, we didn’t meet Wallace and Gromit but we did meet a very nice man called Nick who turned us all in to children and delivered a session especially for us. (Wallace and Gromit were looking on in the guise of giant cardboard cut outs).

It’s fun being a child; those of you who have read my blogs before will realise that it is a very easy transition for me. We explored a bit of science and technology, played an amusing game and made silly noises and generally got to know more about the run-about chair. It was fun! There were a dozen other people from places as far apart as At Bristol and W5 in Belfast. They were equally good at being children; it must be something about the job we do.

Later on we all had a go at building our own run-about chair, powered by a battery. The instructions are really clear but I still managed to put one piece on upside down; oops! It’s very easy to take put things right, tho’ so I soon had it working properly. I felt really proud of myself. Jennie also managed to build her chair successfully, as did all the other ‘children’.

Jill in London with her Runabout Steam Chair

After lunch we had a go at adapting the session to use at our own centres. Jennie and I thought of loads of things at Eureka! we could use as examples; even Archimedes and his bath.

It was a very long day; we had to catch the 6.30am train from Halifax and didn’t get back until 8.45pm. However, we both came back full of enthusiasm and ready to train up other enablers to bring the sessions to life.

The session are for children aged seven and above and every child that comes to one of the sessions will get a run-about chair kit to take home with them, courtesy of the BBC. They are limited edition and are sooooooo cool. I’m really looking forward to the sessions and especially giving out the kits at the end. It’s like being Santa - and it isn’t even Christmas!

Jill Ward is an Enabler at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

A festive farce from Twinkle and Jingle

It’s that time of year again when Santa’s Workshop sets up in the Eureka! Theatre. Inside our resident elves, Twinkle and Jingle, make the last few preparations before the big day. But (as always) something goes horribly wrong and the elves need a helping hand from some children in order to save Christmas.

This year’s play, 'Santa's Magical Toyshop' is not the first adventure that our elves have been involved in. Last year they found themselves in a similar mess for our 2009 Christmas show. I wrote last year’s show, and again volunteered to write the ‘difficult sequel’. I was determined to write a different script which contained new elements; it was important to me that the show was not the same as before and merely dressed differently. I also wanted to make sure that the 2010 play did not deviate too far from the framework we established the previous year as it proved very successful. As a result the activities the children (and adults) take part in during Santa’s Magical Toyshop are vastly different to last year but the dynamic interactions and banter between the two characters has remained constant.

Enablers turning the Theatre into Santa's Workshop!

The interactive quality of the show has been increased since last year, and requires many children from the audience to join the elves onstage and physically help them to complete their important jobs before Santa wakes up.

Where younger children will respond to the interaction of the performance, older children and adults will appreciate the humour in the guise of Twinkle and Jingle’s frantic dialogue. Jingle, the overworked and underpaid ‘line manager’ elf clashes with his docile yet kind-hearted worker, Twinkle. There are many one-liners within their interaction specifically aimed at an older audience that will amuse them while not confusing the young ones.

Writing for an interactive show differs in many ways to writing for the stage. A key difference is that you cannot be too narrow; that is, there must be room for the performers to improvise should anything go wrong including: the children not giving an expected answer or a toddler wandering onstage and starting to dismantle the set. The performers must be more fluid and be ready to change the contents of the show in response to the situations that occur, which is not possible if they have strict dialogue patterns or subtle punch-lines.

One of the main things that attract people to the show is, of course, the opportunity to meet Santa. All children can speak with Santa at the end of the show and get a photo with him should they wish. But the staging is beneficial for children who are intimidated by Santa as they have support, from all other children in the audience, a gentle introduction to him, and the choice to either go to see Santa up close or just  watch him from afar. So due to way it is staged no children have to miss out on the Christmas experience.

It’s fantastic to see a project through to the end and due to everyone involved the finished production is hilarious, heart-warming and full of Christmas magic.

Ben Healey is an Enabler at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

From start to finish on the new Nursery play area

Part of my role here at Eureka! as the Exhibition Manager is to manage projects around the museum. Over the past few months I have been working on the new outdoor play area for the Eureka! Nursery. It replaces the old play area in front of the 1855 Building, on the grass of the Eureka! Park.

While my role calls for me to design exhibits inside the gallery, for this project, we have been fortunate enough to be able to employ the skills of a landscape designer, who was able to help bring our concept for the Nursery play area, as a natural play area to life.

As my background is in design, I was able to work closely with the designer to ensure we got a design that fulfilled all of our requirements. In order to get to the stage of issuing a brief, there were several stages we needed to go through first of all!

Before we were even able to hire our landscape designer, we had to apply for planning permission. This is because the proposed site was adjacent to our 1855 grade three listed building. As project manager, I was responsible for submitting this application. It can take several months for a decision to be reached, but thankfully our application was successful and we were able to proceed.

Once our application had been granted  I held internal meetings with the rest of the Eureka! team which included our Director of Play and Learning, and the Nursery Manager and communicated the project requirements to the designer. Before writing a brief for what we wanted to see in the play area, I went on research trips to visit other successful nursery play areas .

The brief had to include examples, to give the designer guidance on what we wanted to see. I produced some design sheets based on my findings, and other research I had done. It was also important that the brief recognised the practical considerations, such as fencing, entrance and exit gates to the play area and making sure it was sizeable enough to hold an entire group from the Nursery.

Based on our content, we gave a brief to the designer, who was then able to present several design concepts to us. We chose a final design picking bits that we liked from each design, which has resulted in the creation of a natural play area that we set out to achieve. The new play area will is very natural, using timber, sand and stone, in all sorts of colours, sizes and textures. A unique mosaic water feature encourages interaction, with children able to affect the water flow. A mini nature trail runs along one edge of the site, and come the Spring will be filled with different wild flowers, herbs and interesting shrubs like bamboo, and will encourage children to use all of their senses to explore their new outdoor habitat.

The design plan submitted for the Nursery play area

My favourite feature is the large, permanent timber story chair, which will be used for story time outside. I really like the idea of the new area having different uses, whether it is for play, exploration or story time.

Our designer then worked the concept drawings up into detailed plans, and, delivered them to a firm of contractors to start work on the play area. While I wasn’t laying sod or installing the tunnel, as project manager part of my job was to co ordinate deliveries and make sure things turned up on time! One of my main responsibilities was also to make sure that the site remained safe, as we want to ensure that even during construction, our visitors have a great experience at Eureka!.

It is always exciting seeing a project progress from start to completion. Project management is a challenging role, and at times quite stressful – especially when faced with adverse weather conditions. Despite this, I really enjoy my varied role here, as I get to meet and work with lots of different people, and no day is ever the same!

Amanda Phillips is the Exhibition Manager at Eureka! The National Children’s Museum

Early days with the Eureka! Team

If you’re reading this, then I’m sure that you’ve been to Eureka!, but if you haven’t then let me tell you about how I’ve just started experiencing it as a new Enabler working in the museum.

Eureka! is an amazing place. I’ve never worked with a group of people who are so ludicrously happy. When I started at Eureka!, it was already August and the summer holidays were already in full swing. Just tonnes of families, including hundreds of children, would queue up every day to come and visit us in the museum.

Enjoying the sunshine on the E! Beach and Park this summer.

I’ll be honest, the energetic atmosphere that Eureka! has, has been slightly daunting. Even for me, having left university with a Performing Arts degree! I thought I’d be used to dealing with masses of people and upbeat environments. As awesome as everything looked, it was all totally alien to me. I really had thrown myself into the deep end! But in retrospect I guess there was no other way of doing it.

I’ll never forget the first day that I was introduced to Scoot, yes, Scoot the robot. The way he manages to engage with the children about all the things they have seen and done on their visits to Eureka! is truly fascinating. The children’s faces light up as he shares his knowledge of the world and answers their questions. He once told me that he had auditioned to be in Star Wars, but came to work at Eureka! after he had been beaten to the part by R2-D2.

It’s all a bit surreal. I mean, one minute I might be the manager of a bank or helping children talk to Scoot, the next I might be accompanying a giant gnome or playing parachute games in the Eureka! park.

At Eureka! we try and run lots of different workshops that will fuel the imagination and draw out the creativity of the children that visit us. Now, I have done a few of these workshops and activities and believe me I have loved doing them all, but for me, my favourite (so far) has got to be the Carnival workshop.



Wow! It was awesome fun! First, we learned all about carnivals, and learn how to march and chant to our very own carnival beat. Then we got messy making funky carnival hats and shakers! We followed that up by going on a carnival parade of our own around the Eureka! Town Square and onto the Wonder Walk.

As the newbie to the Eureka! Enabler team, I couldn’t really ask for more. Everyone is super friendly and very welcoming as a team. I’ve already done too many things to write about in one post, and I know that there are going to be many more experiences for me to write about in the future. Okay, so I’ve only been here over the summer and I’m not a Eureka! veteran just yet, but believe me, I’m getting there!

Ben Guilfoyle is an Outreach Enabler at Eureka! The National Children's Museum

Who slayed our dragon?

Sharp eyed visitors to Eureka! may have noticed something’s changed this week: our Chinese dragon, who guards the fire exit from Me and My Body has been beheaded!

Before you ask, security hasn’t detained any wandering St. Georges. Instead it’s an explanation that’s a bit less magical. He’s quite an old dragon, you see, who has been here since the museum opened. Just over 18 years of weather and wear have taken its toll and early last weekend the metal supports which held him up finally collapsed. His scales were removed and he was taken in state to a new resting place in our Loading Bay, where he is awaiting appraisal. You can see the damaged support below, 18 years of wear on the metal has made it very crumbly.

My what big teeth you have!

Until the dragon’s head returns, I thought I would share some fun facts about him.

• The dragon was designed to cover the fire escape stairs that lead down from a balcony off of Me and My Body.
• Our dragon doesn’t actually have a name; as a creature of imagination it’s only fair that we let you, the visitor, make him come alive for yourself.
• Our dragon has been the inspiration for workshops and events for as long as the museum has been open: he’s seen Chinese lion and dragon dancers and has been the face of our ‘Dragon’s Mouth’ school workshops. 
• The dragon is now something of a celebrity. Even the Dragon's Den liked the idea of him and filmed him at the end of one of their roadtests. Maybe that's what went to his head!

Dragon & friends back in 1993 for the 'Dragon's Mouth' workshop

But you know, our dragon’s disappearance may have another explanation, especially since Eureka! is such a magical place. Being August, and a rather drought-filled one at that (in spite of weather appearing to the contrary!) it’s important to keep health and safety concerns in mind, especially when dealing with animals known for their flammable nature. So, with a few cosmetic repairs required already, we thought this was the perfect time to schedule our dragon’s annual maintenance for fire breathing capacity. After all, a healthy dragon is a happy dragon, and happy dragons aren’t naughty people-crispers.

This is the way we brush our teeth

How do you take care of your mouth? It might be avoiding eating lots of sugary foods and drinks, flossing every day, visiting the dentist, or brushing your teeth after meals. Most of us use a toothbrush to take care of our mouths. In other cultures throughout history they have used cleaning twigs made from plants like neem or cinnamon or even porcupine quills. Some cultures use chalk or bicarbonate of soda to make their mouths clean and their smiles bright.

And how do we take care of Eureka!’s very big Mouth in Me and My Body?

We use paint of course.*

Just another day at the museum.

*We would not otherwise recommend the use of paint to achieve a healthy smile, but it’s very hard to source a large enough tube of toothpaste for a six-foot-tall mouth.

Allison Tara Sundaram is the Marketing and PR Officer at Eureka!