Kidspace Children’s Museum, California.

Kidspace children's museum in California

Kidspace is a children’s museum in Pasadena, California. Its aims and goals are very similar to Eureka!'s as it is structured around a learning through play philosophy, and aims to “inspire learning through self-directed, interactive experiences and play in the arts, sciences and humanities that enrich children, families and the community”. 

I was in the USA recently with Rebecca, one of the other Enablers here at Eureka!, and decided to go and pay the people at Kidspace a little visit. Children’s museums are extremely popular in America, with at least twenty-nine of them in California alone so, no matter where we were, we would have had no problem in finding one, but it just so happened that Kidspace was only a fifteen minute drive from where we were staying. We rang up, explained that we were members of the Eureka! team, and were invited for a tour around the museum. Awesome.

Kidspace caters for children aged 0 to 9 years old and, although Kidspace is a lot smaller than Eureka!, there is still a lot for children to do. We didn’t get a chance to play on all of the exhibits, but even with our time limitations it took us a good two hours to make our way around the five galleries .

The Kidspace galleries are:

The Early Childhood Learning Centre

• EarlyChildhood Learning Centre – A gallery where children aged  0-4 years can play, dance, sing, read at their own pace, and where child-adult interaction is encouraged.
• Central Courtyard – One of the few places in the museum where parents are allowed to sit and relax, the courtyard offers children water fountains and an outdoor dig-it build-it area.
• The Digging Deeper Gallery – As one of the main galleries, Digging Deeper offers children the chance to get up close and explore nature. Digging Deeper also has real insects on show, fossils to unearth (see the video on the right!), and an amazing Nature Exchange (which I’ll talk about later).
• Wisteria Courtyard – An actual child-sized road for children to peddle trikes around whilst learning the meaning of everyday road symbols.
• The Gardens – The gardens has a lot to offer. Vegetable gardens, a climbing wall, waterwheel and water cycle exhibit. All the different plants offer a huge range of colours and smells, and the winding paths make everything feel that little bit more magical.

Bugsy's Diner in Digging Deeper

Just like Eureka!, Kidspace uses its surrounding environment to its advantage. Being situated at the foot of the Pasadena hills, and in the grounds of the Arroyo Seco Park, Kidspace is surrounded by lots and lots of nature. There is a giant park at the front and a giant forest to the rear and, because of this, a lot of the exhibits are designed around nature. The main gallery, Digging Deeper, offers a lot in the way of this. We were able to come face-to-face with scorpions, a baby goliath spider (which absolutely terrified me), and even bumble bees. We even got to watch a show all about how bees communicate through different ‘dances’, which were re-enacted by one of the Educators, who are similar to our Enablers here at Eureka!

The Nature Exchange

One thing I must talk about though is the Nature Exchange. As a way of getting children engaged with the world around them, and as an introduction to trading, collecting and making observations I thought that this was brill. Children are encouraged to learn while exploring, so if the children discover anything they find particularly interesting they can either collect it, or make a note of it by drawing a picture or writing a description. The children can take their findings to one of the Educators at the Nature Exchange, who will award the child points for their discovery. Over time the child can accumulate points which they can then trade in at the Nature Exchange for ‘nature based’ rewards - things like small shells for a few points, and large pine cones for a lot of points. Not only this, but the children are encouraged to keep making discoveries  away from Kidspace, which they then bring with them when they return, so in this way the learning never stops. I really did like this a lot.

Some of the items traded in at the Nature Exchange

There is so much to talk about that I can’t possibly fit it all into one post, but you can always visit the Kidspace website if you want to have a closer look at what they offer.

Eureka! and Kidspace are both children’s museums, and they both offer a learning experience for children that is built around play and discovery, however they are both very different in how they offer this. I think it has a lot to do with the environment in which the museum is set. Anyway, that’s just a little bit about our trip to Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena, California. It’s really awesome and we had a brilliant morning there, so if you’re ever in the area you should check it out.

Benjamin Guilfoyle

Early Years 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

Graveyard Walks

Graverobber, telling spooky
Halloween tales at Eureka!

Hi there everybody - I just arrived from Victorian Halifax to do a few graveyard walks. I’m a grave robber, or resurrectionist as I prefer to call myself. I was asked to take some children around and tell them some ghost stories as part of Eureka!'s Spooktacular Halloween week and I was happy to oblige (for a few gold coins, of course). 

My graveyard was haunted by a ghostly 900 year old monk, a ghostly horse and carriage driver, two headless corpses (one in chains and one playing the bagpipes) and another restless spirit shot full of holes (I call him the Holey Spirit!).

I particularly enjoyed telling my tales, as every one of them is a true story – tales of unexpected and grisly deaths that happened right here in Halifax; in sight of Eureka!, most of them!

The children helped me exorcise the restless spirits by reading their names to me, off their tombstones, so I could command them to move on. Well, I wouldn’t be doing this job if I could read and write, would I?  I rewarded them with gold coins from the Cragg Vale Coiners’ hoard -  they were very tasty I hear.

The graveyard is much more peaceful now so I can carry on my good work of supplying local hospitals with bodies for the doctors to dissect to increase their knowledge and move on the cause of medical science. So don’t call me a criminal; I’m a hero I am!

Banishing ghosts on a graveyard walk

You can take part in our Spooktacular Halloween event until 30 October...

Loose parts is AWESOME!

Wait… what? You don’t know what loose parts is? Well, let me bring you up to speed. The term ‘loose parts’ is just another way of saying ‘junk modelling’, and it’s a really cool, simple, fun activity that anyone can do.

Loose parts activities encourage open-ended learning, and are great tools to use with children of all ages and abilities, as it engages the imagination and helps to unlock creativity. Children love having the freedom to make and do whatever they want, so that’s what I try to give them.

I dedicated all of Sunday 25 September to loose parts, loading up the Imagination Space here at Eureka! with a whole host of bits and bobs that would otherwise have been thrown away. Big bits, little bits, plastics and fabrics, old boxes and tyres, scraps of fabric, garden canes and loads, loads more. We had a real treasure trove of junk just waiting to be made into something amazing. I also gave the children the opportunity to try their hand at designing by having a designer’s area where the children could plan their creation before attempting to make it. Boy, did we make some awesome stuff!

Creativity and FUN! at loose parts day, 25 Sept 2011

We had all sorts of amazing creations: monsters, robots, dolls and animals, right through to spaceships, trains, musical instruments, and bows and arrows. The photos here capture just a few of the amazing creations that we made. Even some of the Enablers came to join in the fun!

Loose parts day was a really big hit, and everyone who took part said that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves, both adults and children alike. Best of all, the children could take home everything that they had made - and why shouldn’t they? All the materials were things that we didn’t need, and the children spent a lot of time turning those unwanted objects into something so much better than what they were originally made for!

We had a lot of fun on loose parts day, and would hate for anybody to miss out being part of such a great opportunity to be creative, so come along and join in if you can. We’ll be holding our next loose parts day on Sunday 4 December. If you’d like to make something as cool as the creations in the pictures, why not come on down to Eureka! and join in the fun? Come along to use your imagination, be creative and make something fantastic!

Ben Guilfoyle
Specialist Play Enabler

Playing into the Future

The International Play Association (IPA) is a nongovernmental organization formed in the 1960’s whose sole aim is to ‘protect, preserve and promote the child’s right to play’, or Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The IPA believes that play is ‘vital to develop the potential of all children’. ‘Play is a means of learning to live, not a mere passing of time’.

So, last week I lived in the lovely city of Cardiff in Wales where I represented Eureka! at the IPA World Conference. Now, I’ve never really been to a conference before, not for a full week anyway, so I didn’t really know what to expect and it was all a little bit daunting. 

The conference was held in Cardiff City Hall and it was huge. There must have been about 600 people attending from all over the world who all seemed to know each other somehow, and me, in the middle, alone, not knowing what to do… yeah…


But IPA had a secret weapon for this very situation. They had free coffee (or tea) and cake, and let me tell you, coffee and cake is a great ice breaker, and even more so when it’s free :)

So I made some friends and we headed to the opening ceremony where we heard speeches from the First Minister of Wales and the IPA World President. The rest of the day, and indeed the week, were up to us. There were loads of seminars being given by play work practitioners from all over the world, some of which I’d heard of, and others that I’d not.

Children helping with demonstrations at the IPA Conference

I’d been a good boy and already decided which seminars I was going to attend before going, so another free coffee (and cake) later and I was in my first seminar. This was pretty much the pattern for the rest of the week, seminar, coffee, seminar, coffee etc… 

Now if I wanted to keep writing for ages I’d go into details on each of the seminars, who the speaker was and what point they were making and what I brought back with me to Eureka!, but that would be incredibly boring, so I’ll just kind of do a summing up of what I figured were the most important points (for me anyway) of the week.

So I guess these are the two most important things:

1.    Children need to experience risk during their play. I remember when I was a child, I was always climbing trees, making rope swings, making dens etc… I was always seeing if I could reach the next branch up, or swinging higher, and constantly pushing myself to beat what I’d achieved before. So I might have fallen once or twice but who cared, I learnt to be careful. More and more children today are losing the element of risk in their play. If there is no risk involved, then the child won’t learn what it means to take a risk, to fail, and to succeed in that risk. We can’t forever be cushioning everything. Children need to graze their knees every once in a while. We need to promote risk management, not risk aversion, and realize the benefits of risk taking.

Children climbing a tree at the IPA Conference

2.    Children need to experience nature. More and more children are not getting to experience nature. I sat in on a couple of seminars about ‘Forest Schools’. A Forest School is an area of forest where children are invited to spend one day a week exploring the forest. All with adult supervision, the children can make things using real tools, cook their own food over an open fire, explore, climb, balance and really do whatever they want to. Now, I know that not everywhere has access to a Forest School, but that doesn’t mean that we should shy away from incorporating an element of nature in to play. In my opinion, children are now being brought up in a world of plastic; action figures, video games, plastic play equipment etc… Why don’t we ditch the plastic and use some wood for a change? 

I could go on but I think you get the gist. I’ve learned much more than just this, but I can’t really blog about it all.  It would take ages. 

Anyways, on the last day we all went to a Play Festival accompanied by one of the local schools. There were tree climbing, rope swings, water fights, crafts, singing and more. 

Ben Guilfoyle is the Specialist Play Enabler

Eureka! I have found a job!

In May 2010 I had been actively seeking work for months with no luck, I came across a government programme, The Future Jobs Fund, offering paid work experience with organisations for 6months. The Future Jobs Fund was the beginning of one of the best experiences of my life. I applied for a post with Eureka! The National Children’s Museum as an Administration Assistant. I had never envisaged myself working in a business environment but the opportunity had presented itself and I decided to take it on.

If I could put into words how I feel about working for Eureka!, I would be selling Eureka! short. Working at Eureka!, has been an amazing experience which can only be described in its simplest form as breathtaking. When I started working for Eureka! I did not really know what to expect. I can safely say all my initial inhibitions were quickly displaced. As an A-level graduate with little experience in an office/business environment and feeling a little naïve, I thought I would be out of place. The reality was completely to the contrary and within a week I felt as if I had been working at Eureka!, for the greater part of the year.

Although I had joined the Marketing and Development Team at Eureka!, there was an informal environment and the atmosphere was in line with the playful ethos of the museum. Being in the Corporate Office was slightly daunting as the team is highly efficient and professional yet everyone is friendly and easy to approach, so it created a great productive atmosphere to work in. Not only am I privileged to be working with some of the brightest minds in the industry, but at the same time I’ve been inspired to go above and beyond my best. Working at Eureka! has been amazing, no one day goes by that is the same. You can be working on a corporate event with blue chip clients wanting an informal environment for some genuine team building, or doing a workshop with children excited to learn about poo. In the galleries I enjoyed seeing children’s faces light up in excitement at speaking to Scoot the Robot, and I was challenged doing research for fundraising and marketing campaigns, everyday is different and almost always exciting.

David running the Wacky Races session as part of Playday 2010

I have learnt a great deal at Eureka! over the past year from life skills to comprehensive business skills that I hope will put me in good stead for my future career. I am also currently waiting for confirmation that I have passed my NVQ Level 3 Diploma In Business and Administration.  I am more confident and my interpersonal skills have significantly improved from my time here.! From being a shy young man trying to find his career path, to being a professional orientated individual with a promising future ahead. I owe a lot to the team at Eureka! as I embark on the next stage of my life, I take on board everything I have learnt and all the experience I have gained in my role. After over a year of working at Eureka! (my contract was extended after the Future Jobs Fund placement) I am currently preparing to start work with the UN on anti-poverty initiatives and human right issues in Third World countries. As I leave I will always remember the playful ethos of Eureka! particularly the essence of play, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

David Dube is the Administration Assistant at Eureka! The National Children's Museum and will be leaving at the end of the month to work with the UN. 

Five Practice Tasks to Help Improve Your Child’s Hand Eye Coordination

As an ex-professional tennis player, I have years of tennis playing and coaching experience. When my daughter reached two I started to recognise that games we played were not only fun but helped develop hand-eye co-ordination and many other skills. I soon realised that this was something that many other parents would appreciate and started to develop Tennis Tots.

The Tennis Tots curriculum helps improve agility, balance and coordination in young children as well as devising educational based lessons; which allow children to learn numeracy, colour recognition and language skills whilst building their confidence along the way.

Parents play a crucial role in both the introduction to sports and earlier stages of a child’s development. Children from the ages of 2-5 years can be introduced to many fun games and skills to help improve their Hand-Eye Coordination; the ability of the eyes to guide the hands in movements.

Why is it so important for your child to develop this skill?
•    In school, visual-motor integration, which is a vital skill for handwriting, grows out of a good hand-eye coordination base. The eyes need to guide the hand in forming the letter shapes and making sure they stay within the lines of the page.
•    In gross motor games, hand-eye co-ordination can help your child to catch a ball and hit a ball with a bat or racket
•    Eye tracking skills, which are vital for reading, can also develop through the gross motor games used for hand-eye coordination.
Here is a list of tennis based activities from the Tennis Tots curriculum that you can use at home with your children to help develop your child’s hand-eye coordination. All of these activities are used within the Tennis Tots programme and can benefit children from age 18 months-8 years of age in a number of ways. They are also a great chance for you to spend some fun time with your child doing something that is both active and educational.

Balloon Tap Up
Try to keep a balloon up in the air by tapping it up with both hands or by using a racket. Children can try using one hand or two hands depending on their ability and parents can tap the balloon alternately with their child to make it more fun. This exercise is great for developing each child's hand eye coordination and helps to improve tracking skills at an early age. Try to count the number of hits you get and improve on your score each day.

Catch and Bounce Catch
Practice throwing a big ball (no bigger than a football) underarm so that the children can catch it without a bounce. Try to kneel down so that you are at eye level with the children when you throw the ball. This will help the children track the flight of the ball more easily. Try to count to ten catches before progressing the exercise to throwing the ball with a bounce before catching it. Practice saying "Bounce and then Catch" so that the children get used to the rhythm of the ball bouncing and then catching it. For a more challenging exercise you can throw the ball to the right hand side and the left hand side and see if the children can move and catch the ball after one or two bounces. If the children can handle this get them to say split and do a split step before you throw the ball. This will help them be ready to receive the ball. Counting the number of catches you do allows the children to develop their numeracy skills along the way. You could count from 1-10 or count backwards from 10-1 or even start at 20 and progress from there depending on the age and developmental stage of your child.

 Fetch
Practice rolling a tennis ball through your child’s legs with them facing away from you. As soon as the ball comes into vision they chase it and pick it up with either their left hand or right hand depending on the instruction. Try progressing this exercise by asking the children to sidestep back like a crab or jump back with their feet together like a Kangaroo.

Rollerball
Sit down on the floor opposite your child with legs apart. Practice rolling a big ball (no bigger than a football) between your legs and counting the number of rolls you can do. Encourage your child to stop the ball with two hands by putting the palms of their hands on the top of the ball before pushing it back. 
For older children who find this task easy try getting them to stand on a marker and roll a ball to either their left side or right side. When the ball comes, encourage your child to move and stop the ball with either their right or left hand, depending on where the ball was rolled and then encourage them to roll it back with that hand before sidestepping back to their marker to repeat the task. This is an excellent activity to develop perception skills as well as developing hand eye coordination and balance whilst helping children learn about the left and right sides of the body.

Floor Tennis
Practice rolling a big ball with a 17 inch or a 19inch racket along the floor standing about 5 ft from each other. Encourage your child to trap the ball with the racket and then roll it back to you. Try counting to ten rolls and then start again.
For older children this exercise can be done using left and right hands and will involve more movement. Starting on a marker, try rolling the ball to either side try rolling it away from your child encouraging them to move and trap the ball with their racket either with their left or right hands. Once the ball has been trapped, children should attempt to roll the ball back from a sideways on position before recovering back to a marker with a side step. 

Try doing this exercise three times per week for five minutes each time and it will really help your child improve their hand-eye coordination skills as well as improving their overall development in a number of areas.

Matt will be at Eureka! on Sunday 12 June giving Tennis Tots half hour taster sessions. To watch a video of some of these exercises and to learn more about the Tennis Tots programme watch the video below:

Matt McTurk is the creator of Tennis Tots, an educational based Tennis Programme aimed at boys and girls from 2-5 years of age which runs across Yorkshire. For more information about the Tennis Tots programme visit our website. If you are new to Tennis Tots you can book a free trial by calling  07725339257 or email us.

We’re going on a bear hunt…we’re going to catch a big one…

We all know and love the classic ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen, which is why we chose it to be the theme of our 2011 Early Years Fiesta. The Early Years Fiesta is an event catering solely for pre-booked Early Years groups in the first week of May during SATs week. This year was such a fantastic success with record bookings, that ‘Early Years Week’ became ‘Early Years Three Weeks’. The feedback we have received so far has all been extremely positive, showing that this event was enjoyed by all.

This story, by its very nature, lends itself well to the outdoors, so we decided that it would be fantastic to make use of our newest outdoor exhibition, ‘The Wonder Walk’. Through this adventure the children were guided by two of our Eureka! explorers, where they overcame the obstacles that the story threw at them on their quest to find the Bear. We used the willow structures for the ‘long wavy grass’, water trays for the ‘splishy splashy river’, ‘icky sticky mud’, trees and branches for the ‘deep dark forest’, and artificial snow for the ‘swirling whirling snow storm’, the overall effect was fantastic!

Looking for the Bear

Even though we love the Bear Hunt story we could not resist putting our own Eureka! spin on it and so added a new magical element to the story. This was in the form of a kind Eureka! Fairy who had left some of her fairy dust for the children. The children were asked to take a pinch of this glittery dust and to think of their favourite animal, then sprinkle the dust in the air to become that animal (with their imaginations switched on of course). We had allsorts of animals emerging, turning the Eureka! park in to a unique menagerie of animals.  This ranged from bears and tigers to dinosaurs and unicorns galloping and flying around the Wonder Walk. However, this fairy dust is notorious for wearing off quickly and all too soon we were all human once again, carrying on with our journey to find the bear- who as it turned out, like everything at Eureka! was very friendly too.      

Finding the bear

The weather was not always on our side but we had a fantastic time ‘Swishy Swashing’, ‘stumble triping’ and ‘Squish Squashing’ our way through the Wonder Walk.

The Eureka! version of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ is open to the public until 3 June (tomorrow). Let us know what you thought of it and which other stories you would like us to add a bit of Eureka! magic to.

 Penny Dargan-Makin is the Early Years Specialist Enabler at Eureka!

Are the choices children make when playing nature or nurture?

Last week I was asked to speak on Radio York about whether boys and girls toys are different because of the way children want to play or the way they are nurtured. Well, my first comment was, what is a boys toy and what is a girls toy?

Having worked with young children for over 20 years and being a mother I do think there is a element of nature to the games children play but I also believe that there is a very strong influence from society.  From as young as 2 children are able to recognise differences in gender and already begin to allocate roles to those genders.

If you walk into many large toyshops and supermarkets today you will come across pink aisles/areas full of toys that enable girls to act out caring roles. Then you have the other areas with action toys and scientific equipment marketed at boys. Watch adverts on children’s TV and you’ll  see girls caring, boys being adventurous, parents  in stereotypic  gender roles. By aiming products at a specific gender they do reinforce the expected gender role, imprinting expectations of a domestic role for girls whilst their male counterparts are being equipped for much more diverse occupations. One large retailer said “When it comes to things like illustrations on product packaging, we are very much at the mercy of our suppliers” Is this acceptable or a copout?

A boy does some cooking in the Living and Working Together gallery

At Eureka!, as in all children’s museums, we  recognise the need to use the foremost years of a child’s life to set the foundations of equality and enable them to respect and value diversity. We ensure we provide positive images of people of both genders reflecting daily life, we create spaces where all children should feel welcome. 

Does it matter? The news is full of good news about how well girls are doing in education, getting more jobs in previously male dominated sectors and a recent study has revealed that when it comes to work and family, men and women are more alike than different. This finding conflicts with a widely held assumption that male identity is rooted in work whereas women place a higher priority on personal/family life. 

Nature? Nurture? It doesn’t matter? What are your thoughts? 

Rebecca Johnson is Play and Learning Director at Eureka! 

Baby-Led Weaning

When any child starts at the Nursery we take some time to talk to parents and understand the child’s habits and routines. When we spoke to Leni’s Mum on her initial pre-visit we were intrigued to hear that Leni was going through the process of Baby-Led Weaning. We had heard of the technique but had never come across anyone who actually used the method.

As this was completely different to our training and experience we were initially worried that Leni would choke but her mum re-assured us and provided literature for us to understand the process properly. The most valuable resource being Gill Rapley’s book ‘Baby-Led Weaning’. To us the theory completely makes sense - if babies are in control of what goes into their mouths they can control the volume of food in their mouths and are less likely to choke. Babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have developed the ability to chew and they do not develop the ability to chew, until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. So by forcing food into a child’s mouth at a pace that they aren’t comfortable with, you could cause choking, which Baby-Led Weaning avoids.

Leni is given her food in a bowl, and broken into pieces, which she will either put on a spoon herself, or she will select the food with her hands and put it to her mouth. There is no need to cut pieces up too much as the bigger they are the better they are to grip.

She chooses what she will eat, decides what foods she does and doesn’t like and also decides how much she eats. Leni can’t talk yet, so she generally uses non-verbal communication to let us know when she wants more- using facial expressions, pouting, bodily actions or sometimes verbally by shouting.

Most children of Leni’s age will drink using a bottle or a non spill cup like a tippy cup, but Leni drinks her milk and water from an open top cup. She places her hands on either side and tips it up for herself, only needing help to steady the cup – which she is needing less help to do so.

Through a combination of research and trial and error Leni’s Mum was able to give us at the nursery, some great foundations to work with. At meal times Leni should be:

• Sat in an upright position
• Offered foods that stick out of her hand
• The only person who puts food in her own mouth
• In control of her eating pace- don’t hurry her
• Left to decide how much she eats- don’t force her to eat if she doesn’t want to, leave her to eat what she wants and that is enough
• Don’t leave her on her own with food
• Handed her spoon pre-loaded for her to feed herself if serving sloppy food eg soup

Through trying this process out in our setting we have a deeper insight into the process of Baby-Led Weaning. Leni enjoys all her meals and has a great appetite whilst making choices for herself, we have even tried the process with the other children, and it has had a positive impact for all concerned.

The literature that we have read suggests that overall Baby-Led Weaning children will inevitably be less picky eaters, have advanced fine motor skills and develop good table manners faster. Let us know what you think of Baby-Led Weaning by posting a comment here or pop by to our nursery open day on Saturday 21 May between 10.30 and 2.30 for a chat.

Kelly Marris, is an Early Year’s Practitioner at the Eureka! Nursery and is Head of the Baby Room

---

Taking first steps into theatre with ‘From here … to there’

There is a big push now among children’s theatre companies to produce shows for the youngest of children. There is a recognition that many parents bring younger siblings along to see shows that are made for slightly older children and that their younger siblings still get an enormous amount from the experience.


So, how about making a show specifically for them, and if we do, what should an early year’s show look like? If we look to our European neighbours: Denmark, Austria, France, Italy, and Belgium to name but a few, there is a wealth of experience in theatre for early years to draw upon.

When researching ‘From here … to there’, I took part in an international exchange project with La Baracca in Italy and Toihaus in Austria. It was a great learning journey, and in many ways, ‘From here …to there’ is the outcome of that journey.
Before starting we wanted to observe young children. What interests them, how do they negotiate play, how long can they sit and watch, etc… We found, like many others, that when you get the material right they can sit and watch far longer than we may think. So many times parents have come to me afterwards and said, “I’ve never seen my 2 year old sit still for so long.” So what makes the content so relevant and engaging for young children?
There are a few things that I consider to be fundamentally important and I’ve listed them below:

• Play – a playful spirit in the performers and in the creation process helps to connect immediately with very young children.

• Games – recognisable games that young children respond to intuitively ie. Peek a boo

• Visual Language - Considering carefully the props and materials used and using them in visual and imaginative ways.

• Words: Keeping spoken language to a minimum and playing with sounds & rhythms.

• Familiar rituals/routines – Building on events that are familiar to young children, ie. brushing teeth / eating / getting dressed, and then heightening the routine to make it theatrical and for it to become something else…

• Genuine emotions: young children are motivation seekers! They want to know why we do everything we do. So there is a real need for the actors to be emotionally genuine and to respond in a true way to the events in the performance.

As part of the creation process for ‘From here…to there’, we spent two weeks researching & developing the show with children from 2 – 4 years in a nursery setting. We looked specifically at the dynamics of play and how young children move from independent play and playing alongside each other to playing which involves sharing and negotiating. For a two or three year old this tends to be full of conflict and resolution - great content to put into a theatre show! It was hugely rewarding to try out some of our ideas with children and in some cases to have them show us that we had got it wrong! Making theatre for the very young is a very humbling experience!

As a company we also encourage young children to interact with our work. After the performance there is plenty of time to get hands on. We let the children play with the boxes and materials from the show so that they can build their own towers and bridges. It gives them a chance to respond instinctively to what they have seen in the best way that children know how – through play!

The show is now touring across the UK and is coming to Eureka! this weekend, so you can see for yourselves if we have got it right, or even better bring your little ones and let them see if this theatre for early years is truly for them.



This blog is written by Natasha Holmes (Artistic Director of Tell Tale Hearts)


The photos by Gavin Joynt (children from Playmates nursery, Deighton, Huddersfield)


‘From here … to there’ – was funded by Arts Council England Lottery, Lawrence Batley Theatre and the international exchange project was co-ordinated by Earlyarts






TELL TALE HEARTS are a professional children’s theatre company who are now raising the profile of theatre for Early Years Children. They have been making theatre exclusively for children since 2004. In that time the company has toured its work internationally and become established as one of the most respected companies in the UK making work for early years.






FROM HERE TO THERE is a partnership production between the Lawrence Batley Theatre and Tell Tale Hearts, it premiered at the LBT in 2010 and now is touring nationally during 2011. Tell Tale Hearts are a resident company at the Lawrence Batley Theatre.

History, Entertainment and Liking the Hiking!- The new Eureka! h.e.a.l.t.h. walk.

Were you aware that walking a mile uses practically the same amount of calories as running a mile? Did you know that inactivity has the same effect on the heart as smoking twenty cigarettes a day? Go on, google it if you don't believe me! I didn't know until I went on a course to become a qualified walk leader with the ‘Walk It’ scheme; where I found out about the amazing health benefits of walking.

Let me take you back to the beginning. One morning a couple of months ago we were told about an idea to develop a mile long walk, using Eureka!’s learning through play ethos,centred on Eureka! for one of the activities during the ‘Healthy Halifax’ weekends in May. I thought it sounded like a great idea and put my name forward to be considered as a walk leader. I immediately started doing a bit of research and got quite excited about the project. I was delighted when I found out I was one of the chosen three. The other two were Kevin Field and Michelle Holroyd; both equally delighted and enthusiastic.

We all went on a training course at Mixenden outdoor centre and learnt a lot of the important stuff such as how to do risk assessments and fill in the paperwork. We talked about barriers and motivation and did a short walk ourselves. We all came away determined to try and get more people walking. Our idea was to come up with a session that would be so full of fun and fascinating facts that people wouldn’t even realise they had walked a mile by the end of it.

I began by concentrating on the local history of the buildings and structures visible from the perimeter of the Eureka! site (The perimeter, coincidentally, being around about a mile!). I couldn’t believe the things I was finding out about places I have been walking past for years. Cluniac Monks, criminals, archbishops and ghosts – oh, and Gary Lineker! Gas explosions, ancient beacons, stalactites, church bells and chocolate; it’s all here.

Kevin and Michelle were, meanwhile, coming up with some great ideas for incorporating some nature detective activities for use on the walk and for the walker’s pack. We walked the perimeter and decided on the places we would be stopping for talks and activities; we even incorporated a couple of sing-alongs. Kevin put together a colourful route plan and Michelle even took herself off on a local walk all about ‘the dark side of Halifax’ and discovered a few new ghoulish facts!

Our development and preparation finished, we sent off our risk assessment and finally the day arrived to test our walk; so we invited any Eureka! staff who were interested to join us after work for our h.e.a.l.t.h. (History, Entertainment and Liking the Hiking!) walk. We ended up with fifteen people; a real cross section of staff. The walk was a great success with everyone joining in on the singing and marching and we didn’t lose anybody on the way, not even at the local pub (which is 600 to 800 years old, by the way, and has a ghost)..

We did learn one thing, however, “don’t carry a 2 litre bottle of diet cola around in your rucksack for an hour and then open it”. I guess you could say I came to a sticky end!

We will be trying out our h.e.a.l.t.h. walk on the public this weekend as part of the Healthy Halifax Family Fun Days so pop by on 7 – 8 or 21 – 22 May to have a go on our walk and please tell us what you think.

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

Making mealtime count in the Nursery

At the Eureka! Nursery, a child’s whole day is about learning through play. Meal times are no exception, where the pre-school children really develop with the positive approach we take to include them in meal times.  We have done some really exciting mealtimes for the children, to introduce them to new foods or experiences. An example of this was with the World Cup, where every day they had a new food from a different country. There was everything from South African ‘bobotie’, to Brazilian ‘feijoada’ and of course good old bangers and mash when England played!

Eating for England during the World Cup!

However, learning isn’t just about new and novel experiences, although they’re really fun for all of us. We learn a lot through every day experiences, and at the Nursery we work hard to make sure that there are plenty of opportunities, from assisting setting places for dinner to learning to eat with a knife and fork—however messy that might be.

Each day in the Nursery, children take turns being the day’s superstar. With their ‘key person’ (a member of staff who has responsibility for monitoring the child’s development and providing them with in-depth personal support), they help to assemble the meals delivered from the Eureka! Café, lay tables and serve both meals and snacks. Today, it was Freya’s turn. She told me ‘I’m helping to give dinner out today, I’m the superstar’.

The other children are still involved too. Sam was waiting patiently for his dinner, but he still let Freya know ‘We need two more dinners over here please!’ Through these activities, they’re continually developing their personal, social and emotional skills and it’s a great confidence booster as children are so excited about having a role to play. Sam did a great job of demonstrating how these activities help children take ownership: not only was he applying knowledge by calculating how many dinners were left to serve, but he also had the confidence and self-esteem to articulate this to Freya and her key person.

Tea on this particular day was sandwiches. Another positive of having all of our children eat together and get involved in the mealtime process is they’re able to become more aware of each other, through speaking and sharing, and by learning to identify differences. Understanding dietary differences, due to allergies or cultural and religious beliefs is another key outcome for our children. Sam and Kai were putting together their sandwiches, and as Sam put a slice of ham on his bread he looked at Kai and said: ‘You have to have cheese Kai, cause you’re vegetarian, aren’t you?’

Having your child involved in food preparation gives them ownership and encourages independence

They’re also aware of healthy eating practices—something very important these days! Oliver was quick to point this out, telling Molly: ‘You have to eat your carrots Molly, because you want to get big and strong, like my daddy! And my daddy goes to the gym too’. What was really lovely was that it was Oliver and his friend Molly having a conversation. He wasn’t ‘telling’ her, he was sharing the knowledge he’s gained at home and in the nursery.

There’s so much to learn from a simple meal time, as we know very well here at the Nursery. For us though, one of the most important reasons for getting the children involved with dinner is that they’re having the chance to take pleasure in who they are and what they can do. They’re learning about their identity and abilities, and that in turn helps them in how they share and learn with others.

Meal times are a great way to get involved with your child’s learning. Here are a few easy things you can do at home!

• Learn more about different cultures through your meals. Even something as simple as having a Chinese takeaway and eating with chopsticks can introduce new ways of eating. 
• Let your child help with meal preparation, and eat with cutlery just like the grown ups. Not only do they have ownership in what they’re eating, but any opportunities to develop complex physical skills (like those used for grating, chopping and peeling). 
• The table settings might not be perfect, but setting out the dishes and spoons develops understanding of maths, and helps with spatial awareness.Ask questions and encourage a discussion at dinner. 
• When you’ve just learned something, you want to share it… and a child is no different! Linking experiences helps children to develop a positive sense of community and expand their vocabulary.

Do you have any ways that you get your child learning at mealtimes? What works well for you?

Clare Dean is an Early Years Professional in the Eureka! Nursery.