Learning through Play
It’s 7 a.m. and you’re facing what may turn out to be your greatest challenge of the day: feeding your two-year-old breakfast. You’ve got the high chair ready, the bib ready, and a healthy little bowl of Cheerios to get their day started.
But the moment you turn your back on your little one, you hear a crash on the kitchen floor and the sound of hundreds of little oat-circles scattering beneath the dish washer, table, and Fido’s hungry mug. You turn around and your child gives you a wide-eyed look of, “Am I in trouble or was that hilarious?” You patiently reset breakfast, only to have your child repeatedly knock the bowl of cereal to the ground, giggling hysterically each time you sigh and reset.
In the midst of your growing frustration as you try to get the morning to-dos done, you might not be thinking about how important this repeated aggravation is. Each time, your child is testing how much force and distance it takes to move the bowl to the edge of the high chair. When it tips and falls, she’s learning (even if she doesn’t know it yet) about time and gravity. When it crashes to the floor, she’s learning about sound, based on how far the bowl fell, how full it was, and how far the Cheerios scatter. And when you turn to face her, she’s learning about social interaction between authority figures. And she repeats this over and over again to test her theories.
Seemingly mundane, daily occurrences like this fuel the design of exhibits and programming for children around the world. Children’s museums, science museums, and universities have invested millions of dollars and hours into researching this age group, which undergoes rapid physical, emotional, and cognitive development at a blinding rate.
“Children develop 85% of their intellect, skill, and personality by age five.” – Cathy Southerland, Director of Early Childhood Education & School Programs, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
What children experience and learn under age five will impact the rest of their lives, from career choice to social interaction, from creativity to healthy lifestyles. In this issue of Destinology, we’re highlighting our conversations and work with leading destinations to better understand this age group and how to create the best possible environments to encourage growth in great ways.
The lessons learned aren’t simply for museums; applying the following insights can help improve any zoo, aquarium, theme park, or resort to better their community and encourage lifelong learners, members, and advocates.
Changing Month to Month
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to create a space just “for children under five.”
The following outlines some of the greatest changes your youngest visitors are undergoing.
Birth – Six Months
Most skills during this period are developed at home, but museums start to consider full-body motion such as rolling over and small motor skills such as grasping items with both hands.
Three – Four Months
Children start to identify their primary caregivers and become wary of strangers.
Three – Six Months
Children learn to play by themselves and be content playing alone.
Six to 12 Months
Children begin to sit on their own, crawl, and some begin to walk. They’ll start to grasp things with their finger and thumb, and will recognize their own name and the voices of their caregivers. Early speech skills and separation anxiety will begin to develop.
12 – 18 Months
Kids begin to walk, climb, and build, and can hold a cup or turn the pages of a book. They learn and begin to parrot the word “no,” and know what they want and can ask for it. Separation anxiety is growing, and dramatic role playing appears in the form of imitating adults.
18 – 24 Months
Children can run, carry larger objects, turn knobs, and hold a spoon. They can speak short sentences, develop the concept of “me” and “I,” and have trouble with sharing. Dramatic play skills start to develop.
24 – 30 Months
Kids can start jumping, walking backwards, using zippers, and even dress themselves. They’re still not sharing very well, but start observing other children’s play.
30 – 36 Months
Children will pour liquids between containers and feed themselves with fork and spoon. They may begin to question ”what” and “why,” and will start to play with others. Some children develop the fear of loud or sudden noises.
Year Three
Kids learn balance as they run, gallop, and somersault. They build towers with smaller pieces, begin to explore art, learn colors, count to three, and enjoy listening to stories and making up their own. Sharing begins with “minimal meltdowns”and will take turns when playing simple group games.
Year Four
Kids begin taking stairs with alternating feet, print their names, and start to make drawings that resemble something familiar. They learn shapes, develop early science skills such as observation and classification, and are becoming more independent, and calling attention to themselves a-la “Mom! Watch me!”
Myths and Misconceptions
We want the very best for our children and want them to be safe and protected, but those instincts can sometimes lead us to ignore what children might really need. Our children’s museum experts shine some light on these common misconceptions, and how you can develop helpful, appropriate programming. Learning to share is a far more complex lesson than we can remember.
“The most common misconception I get about this age range is that they can’t learn science,” says Tony Lawson. “But we’re not trying to teach them gravity, the Pythagorean Theorem, or vectors. We’re helping them develop the principles of science, like observation, problem solving, and sorting.”
There is an immense industry for “educational” television and mobile games. But Lawson emphasizes that they’re usually not the best tool. “It’s so important for children to be developing fine motor skills, like turning pages, rather than looking at a digital tablet.” Sitting a child in front of the television assumes they’re solely a visual learner, not a tactile one, and hinders the fine motor skills of doing an activity, or the social skills of doing it with someone else.
One of the most telling museum photographs Lawson has seen in his career is of two parents proudly holding up their children’s artwork, and the two kids looking forlornly off into the distance. Since the children were “taking too long” and “not doing well” with their art, the parents had stepped in to complete the paintings. Mooney and Lawson both emphasize that “time” matters far more than “quality” in this age range. A child may take 20 minutes longer than the allotted time to finish a painting, or paint far outside of the lines, but it’s important for them to take the time to explore the art and the tools to develop multiple skills.
Lastly, risk and failure are a daily occurrence in life, but many parents of this age range over-protect children, who therefore have a delayed learning – and experience coping – with failure. Lawson likes to remind parents that it’s okay for “little ones” to fall down sometimes and learn from their mistakes. “It’s essential for developing independence and coping mechanisms,” says Lawson.
The Rest of the Family
Unless you have really lax security, children under the age of five will be accompanied by a caretaker, if not their parent(s) and/or the rest of their family. That group will most likely wish to stay together throughout their visit, so it’s essential, and one of the greatest challenges, to determine how to make programming and spaces interesting for all age levels.
First, try not to think of a designated space in your destination as being for “preschoolers,” but instead ask, “how can all aspects of my destination appeal to all ages?”
In more adult spaces, this might mean integrating tactile learning opportunities to teach a more fundamental aspect of the topic; and in younger spaces, integrating labels onto benches or nearby walls to teach more complicated aspects of the lesson, or even explain what a parent’s child is learning in that activity.
Second, when developing exploratory exhibits, it’s important to design them both for the parents who want to join their children and crawl around, and also for those who prefer to stand by and take photographs while keeping an eye on their kids. It’s positive not only for that social interaction, and for allowing the parents to back away when the child needs to explore independence, but also so that parents can head in if their child ever feels stuck or concerned. “When structuring programming, it’s great to develop activities that provide opportunities for collaboration,” says Lawson. “It’s fantastic to have activities that can involve the whole family, but it’s also important to remind parents that they shouldn’t be doing projects or activities for their preschoolers – it’s all right for them to fail, and learn from that.”
Mooney goes on to suggest that taking frequent photographs throughout the day is a great way to keep the group involved. “Preschoolers are developing story comprehension and telling their own stories,” she says. “And parents will often make photobooks from their visit. Children get very excited to see images they recognize, and how great is it that some of their early stories might revolve around your destination?”
Oftentimes, educators see parents hurrying their children along to “do everything else,” but that can be a very stressful goal – for the parents! Preschoolers may have emotional meltdowns, accidents, or, for weeks on end, only want to do the same puzzle for hours each time they come to the destination. “And it’s important to encourage that,” says Mooney. “That child is mastering a particular skill, and it’s one of the reasons we encourage memberships with parents of children in this age. No matter what happens during your visit, you’re not stressed about the value-loss of your purchased ticket, because you can come back ‘for free’ when it next best suits your family.”
Practically Speaking
There’s far more that goes into a destination day than just the exhibits or attractions. At PGAV, we often leverage our applied Hierarchy of Needs to describe the order in which guests’ needs must be addressed to ensure a fantastic visit. Considering these practical applications is no different for preschooler families.
For many young children, early morning can be “the best” time, with the greatest alertness and least fussiness or chance for a “meltdown.” Since parents of this age group are frequently lined up outside the door prior to opening, some museums are exploring early opening days specifically for preschoolers.
“Proximity of space is something top-of-mind for parents of children under five,” says Lawson. “Currently at Cincinnati Museum Center, families need to travel back upstairs, across the rotunda, wait in line, and then find a table at which to eat. In our current planning discussions with PGAV, we’re exploring how we can bring food service closer to the Children’s Museum so we can make that part of the day easier.”
Just two years ago, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis opened a new exhibit space for preschoolers called Playscape.
“We were deliberately conscious from the very beginning to create amenities for that age range and their parents within that space, which has a lot going on inside.” – Jennifer Pace Robinson, VP of Exhibits at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum.
“Inside you’ll find a mother’s room for nursing, a feeding area, changing tables on the wall, and really comfortable seating for when parents need a rest or a quiet ‘time-out’ space. We even incorporated two family restrooms within the exhibit.”
“That’s a very common trend – increasing the number of family restrooms – as we’re seeing more mixed families and transgender individuals visiting the museum,” says Lawson. He went on to explain that it’s important to have child-sized sinks and soap dispensers within reach to not only help develop those fine motor skills, but also because amenities out of reach won’t get used. Kris Mooney of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center also noted that some children are afraid of automatic flush toilets, so having manual options in family restrooms can help alleviate that anxiety.
Last but not least, extend the “child-sized” principle to other areas, like dining tables and chairs or resting benches, to keep families together and empower preschoolers.
Putting It into Practice
“A child does not learn from a passive kaleidoscope of experiences, but from the outcomes of actions that he or she has initiated.” – John Keith Brierley, author of Give Me a Child Until He is Seven: Brain Studies & Early Childhood Education
Many of the suggestions in this issue of Destinology sound fantastic and logical on paper, but how do they measure up in the real world? Our top museums share how.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
Dinosphere
The Exhibit | A repurposed domed theater, Dinosphere recreates a 65 million-year-old day in the Cretaceous Period through weather cycles, the bellows and roars of dinosaurs, smells, and the lush plants and trees of a swampy forest.
The Lesson | “Exhibits for All Ages.” While Dinosphere was originally designed for children in grades K-12, the space has been adapted to accommodate preschoolers as well. At each dinosaur model, such as Bucky the Teenage T. rex or Dracorex hogwartsia, young children can touch large bronze casts of the dinosaurs’ bones to develop fine motor skills and sensory exploration. In addition, each major scene in the exhibit has an immersive play table so preschoolers can learn a topic related to the more complex exhibit.
Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
Kid City
The Exhibit | A city-themed play-scape, Kid City provides numerous hands-on stations to keep the town moving. Children can explore a fire truck, climb through four levels of The Factory, direct balls through chutes and tracks on the Ball Wall, analyze “fruits” and “vegetables” in the Grocery Store, and much more.
The Lesson | “Developing Gross and Fine Motor Skills.” Kid City is an exemplary space for preschoolers, providing numerous opportunities to develop both fine and gross motor skills. To access The Factory, kids may need to navigate stairs and ramps, using gross motor skills to balance on one foot and walk a slanted surface. Yet once inside, fine motor skills engage as children fit shapes through matching holes, haul objects up in buckets, or send shapes on their way on a conveyer belt.
Cincinnati Museum Center
Water Works
The Exhibit | In Water Works, children are provided a variety of materials to create a floating craft of their imagination and then send it down a canal of flowing water, through twists and turns and locks and dams.
The Lesson | “Early Science, Independence, and Failure.” Water Works is an excellent opportunity to develop early scientific principles such as observation, questioning, and repetitive testing. The goal is to get the craft to float the entire canal, so children can practice coping with failure (sinking) and parents can practice restraint in not stepping in to “do it for them,” but asking guiding questions like “why didn’t that work” or “what did you see happen?”
