{"id":11173,"date":"2016-03-02T10:07:27","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T18:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/?p=11173"},"modified":"2023-11-08T10:28:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T18:28:30","slug":"kid-friendly-museums-in-new-york-city-and-how-to-make-them-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/games-and-activities\/kid-friendly-museums-in-new-york-city-and-how-to-make-them-awesome\/","title":{"rendered":"Kid-friendly Museums in New York City and How to Make Them Awesome"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City is home to a wide variety of museums\u2014from science museums to art museums to history museums, NYC has it all. Throughout the five boroughs you can find museums where your family can explore and learn something new. Museums are fun to visit and it’s a great way to enjoy quality time together with your family. For children, visiting museums have educational benefits that go beyond the lessons they learn in school. Visiting museums with your child can help develop his language skills and build awareness of the world around him. Many kid-friendly museums in New York City offer workshops\/activities and educational events where you and your child can explore and learn something new together.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo by Rubenstein<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We checked\u00a0into three well-known New York City Museums\u2014The Children\u2019s Museum of Manhattan<\/a>, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum<\/a>\u00a0and the New York Hall of Science<\/a>\u2014that allow children to explore, discover and interact with hands-on exhibits that promote visual, tactile, sensory, and auditory stimulation.<\/p>\n

Three Kid-friendly Museums in\u00a0New York<\/h2>\n
\"Kid-friendly

Brooklyn Children’s Museum<\/a> by Rubenstein<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

The\u00a0Children\u2019s Museum of Manhattan<\/a> (CMOM),\u00a0located on Manhattan’s\u00a0Upper West Side, is described as a \u201clearning theme park\u201d for kids. CMOM has a many hands-on learning exhibits, such as the PlayWorks exhibit where your child can play and learn at the same time.\u00a0It’s also a great exhibit for children with disabilities[pdf]. There are many activities you can do at CMOM with your child-your child can learn the alphabet as they explore the Alphabet Garden and feed Alphie in the PlayWorks exhibit or sing and dance at interactive video music wall at the Frolic exhibit.<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn Children’s Museum<\/a> (BCM) is located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn and like CMOM, there are many hands-on exhibits that your child can explore and learn. In a previous blog post, I mentioned\u00a0BCM\u2019s Sensory Play exhibit<\/a>\u00a0as an ideal place for children with special needs, but BCM has many other exhibits where children of all abilities can explore, such as the Neighborhood Nature and the World Brooklyn. While visiting these exhibits with your child you can play \u201cI spy\u201d or have a treasure hunt. Have your child look for specific things or animals, for example if you are in the Neighborhood Nature exhibit ask your child \u201cwhat animals do you see?\u201d or \u201chow many animals live in trees?\u201d<\/p>\n

New York Hall of Science<\/a> (NYSCI) is located in Flushing Meadows-Corona, Queens and is \u201cNew York\u2019s center of interactive science.\u201d The Preschool Place at NYSCI is perfect for 6 years olds and younger. There are many multi-sensory activities that your child can do, such as learning cause and effect. The Connected Worlds exhibit is a great interactive exhibit where your child will learn about six different environments- jungle, desert, wetlands, mountain valley, reservoir and plains. No matter which exhibit you take your child to, they are guarantee to enjoy every minute of it. Let’s not forget the Science Playground and the Rocket Park Mini Golf Course which are also fun.<\/p>\n

Starting Points for\u00a0Museum Activity Ideas<\/h2>\n
\"Kid-friendly

Eat, Sleep, Play<\/a> by Sarah Ackerman<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Coming up with a couple ideas or activities for the kiddoes before you set foot in the building is a great way to get them excited and prepped\u2014if they need it\u2014for what they’re going to see and do. Set the stage for fun &\u00a0exploration with museum activity ideas:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Contextual meaning<\/strong>. In language, context is important and a museum that is organized and divided by different themes or time periods allows to change contexts quickly. Context gives meaning to our words and so the exhibits found within a museum will help your child to grasp meaning quickly. So, as you are going through the PlayWorks exhibit at CMOM or through the The Connected Worlds exhibit at NYSCI, describe the things they do or see<\/em>. Ask your child what happens when they interact in certain exhibits – describe the sounds or the visual effects (ex: that was loud, soft etc. ) (ex: wow, it changed color\/ or it disappear). Make sure that you speak slowly and and point to what you are talking about.<\/li>\n
  2. Hear some new words<\/strong>. Even if your child can\u2019t talk, you will still be exposing your child to new vocabulary that you normally wouldn’t come across. And\u00a0after reading up on Dana Suskind’s work on the Thirty Million Words project<\/a> you’ll be\u00a0looking everywhere for new things to chat about.<\/li>\n
  3. Hands-on learning experiences<\/strong>. Take advantage of\u00a0hands-on museums where a\u00a0child is\u00a0encouraged to touch, feel, smell, run, jump, and play, your child will develop critical thinking skills, communication skills and collaboration skills. Many museums offer workshops where children can make crafts or take part in daring\u00a0experiments.<\/li>\n
  4. Elicit powerful emotions<\/strong>. Museums can elicit a wide range of emotions: wonder, awe, curiosity etc. These emotions can open pathways to learning, and\u00a0get them excited and interested in a particular art piece or time period or subject. Having a play date at a museum\u00a0is a fun\u00a0way for your child and her friend to\u00a0experience the museum together at the same development level.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Remember to let your child lead, following their lead is one of the most effective and natural ways for your child to learn.<\/p>\n \n \n \n \"Parents'<\/a>\n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    New York City is home to a wide variety of museums\u2014from science museums to art museums to history museums, NYC has it all. Throughout the five boroughs you can find museums where your family can explore and learn something new. Museums are fun to visit and it’s a great way to enjoy quality time together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1090,"featured_media":11174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1538],"tags":[1140,1154,1528,1078,1347],"class_list":["post-11173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games-and-activities","tag-childrens-museums","tag-family-activities-for-speech-and-language","tag-kinesthetic-learning","tag-language-activities","tag-learning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/kid-friendly-museums-in-new-york-city-and-how-to-make-them-awesome.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1090"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11173"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12310,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11173\/revisions\/12310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}