My daughter and I visit many different kinds of museums regularly. Museums are not only great places where families can spend enjoyable time together, they are also spaces where a lot of informal learning occurs for both children and adults.
I’ve noted down below some basic rules that I follow in order to make museum visits as effective as possible. The rules are as follows: Plan before, Give Freedom, Ask Questions, Be Generous, Find connections, Follow-up. More details are given below.
Plan before:
This is the first rule of thumb. A little planning on what you will do at the museum, goes a long way in making the visit as enjoyable and effective as possible. And what is more important is to involve the children in the planning. This makes the children feel empowered and in control of the visit.
If it is a museum that we have been to many times, I ask my daughter as to which exhibits she would want to see that day . She usually lists some of the exhibits that she has already been to and enjoyed in the past. Visiting the same exhibits multiple times is a good thing. There is always something new to learn within the same exhibit.
I also find out if there are any new exhibits that have come up recently or if there is anything new in the museum related to what she is learning at school or is reading about. Telling her about any such exhibits immediately sparks an interest in her and she looks forward to seeing them with a sense of anticipation.
If we are visiting a museum for the first time, we browse the website of the museum together and check out the various exhibits that we can expect to find there. We talk about them a little and she makes her preferences known about what she wants to see.
Give Freedom:
While in the museum, give the child a lot of freedom and choice.
I usually have my daughter lead me through the exhibits. If she is not sure about where to go, we talk about the different choices and options using the brochures, and I have her choose from them. Again, this makes her feel a sense of ownership about her own interests.
I feel that a large part of our job as adults would be to find out what engages the children in the museums. A child may be interested in some topics more than others and hence may tend to engage in exhibits related to them more. Other times, some exhibits are way beyond the child’s level of understanding of the concept (in short it may not fall under their Zone of Proximal Development).
As adults, we need to trust them to know what they want to learn, even if the children don’t explicitly spell it out.
Ask Questions:
The key to effective learning in museums is encouraging the children to critically think about what they are seeing and also ask as many good questions as possible to the adults around them.
Exhibits in some museums are very interactive. I usually let my daughter try experiencing the exhibit on her own. If she is having trouble with it, I help her out. During the course of the experience, I ask her questions related to what, why, when, where and how of whatever is happening in front of her at the exhibit. If she is not able to comprehend it, I try asking the question in different ways before I give her the answer.
One of the ways I encourage her to ask questions is to lead her to a docent near the exhibit. I start asking the docent questions of my own. This way I can role model to her to ask any questions she may have. Once I ask the docent a couple of questions of my own, I usually turn to my daughter and ask her whether she has any questions of her own. Most of the times she has some question or the other that she asks the docent.
Many museums, especially art museums have several non-interactive exhibits. One effective method that I use to make art museums interactive for my daughter is to ask her questions about the pictures that she is seeing. What do you see, what do you think the girl is doing in the picture, why is she doing it, what do u think is happening in the background, do you like the colors in the picture, why and so on. These questions help her engage in the exhibits much better.
Be generous:
Be generous with time at each exhibit. Give children the time to explore each exhibit as much as they would like. Remember the biggest reason for the visit to the museum – so that the children enjoy and learn. And if they are enjoying the experience at one exhibit, why put an end to it.
It’s better to have them explore one exhibit thoroughly instead of breezing through many exhibits for short periods of time. Exploring something thoroughly is when the deepest learning happens.
Find connections:
Try to find connections in the exhibits to what the child may be doing or reading at his/her school or at home. If you don’t know whether there is a connection, ask the child whether she already knows anything about what she is seeing. If the answer is yes, ask her what she has learned about it.
Sometimes, these connections can be found at the periphery of the exhibit. For example, when we visited a Frog exhibit at a science museum recently, we were treated to sights of many different varieties of live frogs, found in many different parts of the world. As we were enjoying these, outside each glass case, I found a map of the continent where that particular variety of frog was found. Since I knew that my daughter was studying the different countries within each continents, we spent some time looking at each map to identify the countries where the frogs were found.
Follow-up:
To maximize the effectiveness of the museum visit, try and follow-up with some activities at home soon after the museum visit. I usually try and get some books from the library related to what we experienced at the museum. If you can find any activity kits at the museum store related to your child’s experiences and if you are in a mood to buy something for your child, that’s another option.
The above are just some of the rules that one could follow, based on my experiences with my daughter. I would love to know if there are others based on your experiences.
