A water room where you’re allowed to splash, throw things, and get wet. A bubble as big as you. A room full of paper, plastic, and wood to create anything your heart desires. A walkway through the human body, inside out. A grocery store where money is no object.
This sounds like an amusement park but is what you’ll find in children’s museums. Each museum has a variety of rooms, called galleries, that offer different interactive learning experiences. That’s the magic of children’s museums: children learn while playing, blissfully unaware of being immersed in science, humanities, and the arts.
My children were highly energetic and my home was small. I responded by filling my car with neighborhood kids and visiting every children’s museum within 90 minutes as often as I could. Their minds, bodies, and imaginations were kept occupied for hours. When I heard that Alison and Kathy were planning to open a children’s museum closer to home in Lake County, I immediately signed up.
Years later, my children’s venue for learning and play is the real world, and they were prepared in part by the lessons learned at the museums. I look at our BBCM building, and I can clearly envision a line of children streaming through its doors. We have the building, we have the staff, we have the children, we have the Board….we just need more resources to bring the magic alive. If you have ever wanted to be a part of something big, from beginning to end, please consider joining our team as a volunteer, as a donor, as an ambassador on our behalf to everyone you meet. We’ll have an adults-only party in the water room the day before we open to the children, and you’ll be invited to play!
Laura Franz
President
Busy Brains Children’s Museum