Pretend City, Irvine - March 16, 2010

I liked many of the things I saw at Pretend City - their Donor Wall was an interactive display; great signage which told parents that this was a cell-phone free facility and encouraged a "family plan" that encouraged parent child interaction; Sanitation Station for toys that had been in a child's mouth; short educational signs "Good To Go from Head to Toe!" which stated what benefit the child gained from each exhibit; great play stage; nice flooring which mimicked pavement and grass; and an awesome farm which had live chicks! You can see that a lot of thought and care went into the planning and execution of this fairly new museum which opened in August 2009. Lots of families were there while we touring the facility after 10am and all were having a great time.

Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose

I enjoyed seeing the variety of exhibits and theming seen in the early learning area especially The Wonder Cabinet. All of the exhibits were labeled in the most prevalent languages in their community - English, Spanish and Vietnamese. The museum produces and sells exhibits to other children's museums like the "make an impression" pin wall. One of the biggest questions we had was how do they clean their manipulatives. Using guidelines from Clorox.com, the staff has implemented a cleaning routine where manipulatives are changed out with sanitized ones every day. They have a special sanitizing machine that they use.

I noticed a few of their larger exhibits were funded with partnerships - First 5 sponsored the Wonder Cabinet and Kaiser Permanent sponsored their nutrition section.

They dedicated a large space to their water exhibit. A large section of water exhibits were geared towards the smaller kids - downsized versions of the bigger exhibits on the opposite side of the room. As you can see - it was a very popular area!

I liked this bubble feature so much so that I found a place that can make them. http://exs.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/parting-water/

Childrens Discovery Museum of San Jose

As Robert mentioned Adam, Angelica, Barb, Margaret and I visited the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose after the trip to the fabricator. The imposing purple-painted museum is located in a park on Woz Way in the downtown area. Access to the entrance from the parking lot was not well marked and pretty far away (think over the river and through the woods). It was chilly and grey when we were there and I thought it would not be fun to wrangle a couple kids on a wet day all the way to the entrance.


Once inside we were met by the marketing manager, Autumn Young, and started the tour. Just inside the entrance is a decommissioned fire engine with kid sized hats--certainly a popular way to start off a child's visit. Just behind it is a Wells Fargo stage coach and then a crossroads leading to various parts of the museum. I liked this installation especially when viewed from above but I think others were not so fond and perhaps will share why. One of the first rooms we visited was Bubbalogna, http://www.cdm.org/viewPage.asp?mlid=62 and later Water Ways. My favorite part was the soothing rain room but children explored with balls, water toys and fountains exploring physics while having fun. There was a water wheel which reminded me of the book wheel we had seen that morning on the PAL Island. Other rooms focused on circles, an archaeological dig, art for very young children in a room with a painting wall (that was cool and should have been bigger), a market & pizza "oven", and a face painting room. Here children painted their own faces and we saw many of them throughout the museum. Next month the outdoor garden will reopen.

Between face painting, corn husk doll making and other art opportunities, children leave this museum with souvenirs of their own creation. On subsequent visits some of the art projects will change so they always go home with something new. It's a good sized facility of 28,000 square feet and there is a lot to do here for children up to 9 or 10 years old. The families we saw seemed to be having a really good time together.

PAL Workshop

It was exciting to see our blueprints coming to life. It's totally different seeing a two dimensional rendition of the PAL and then having the actual pieces in front of you We saw a couple of our PALs in various stages of completion - Make it Move and Discovery Dig.

Jeffrey Pilotte is demonstrating the sturdiness of the Discovery Dig table. He actually stood on top of it after I took this picture and the table didn't budge!

The moving gears were fun to play with. I can just imagine how popular they will be with the kids! The gears are magnetic so they can be placed along the sides of the PALs. You can see how colorful and dynamic the PALs will be even in these early stages of fabrication.

When we were designing the Make it Move, I loved the concept of the book wheel. Here is was - and it was way bigger than I thought it would be! You can see how tall it is by comparing it to Renee and Barb. There are wheels with sturdy casters on this piece, so we can move it pretty easily.

After the shelving for the wheel is complete, I can imagine kids trying to give stuffed animals rides in the slots like a mini-ferris wheel - we'll have to make sure kids don't try climbing into the slots!

Each PALwill have a sliding sign system which allows us to adjust the height of the sign. As you can see, the sign can reach a pretty tall height!

The PALs are in various stages of development - it would have been cool to see more complete versions. They did have color samples for each PAL which looked really great. Looking at the the pieces we did see, I was impressed with the quality and craftmanship of the products. I can't wait to see them when they're finished!

Today was a great experience - very exciting to see our future PAL Islands in their infancy. Albeit on a much smaller scale, it felt like the construction site visits we used to do to VG while it was being built years ago. It is really awesome to see something go from idea to reality and get to witness all the stages. Today was just one small step in our ultimate vision to change libraries into Play and Learn places. Just some observations from seeing what we saw today - quality work, vibrant exciting colors, attractive graphics, and something new and different...

Here are some pictures from the visit:

PAL Islands "Quality Insurance" Inspection

This morning, Michelle, Renee, Margaret, Angelica, Barb, Adam and I checked in on the progress of the PAL islands at the studio of Jeffrey Pilotte (who is the fabricator). Maeryta and Scott from Gyroscope (the designers) also met us there.

Overall, I would say that the quality and workmanship of the PALs will be solid. (Jeffrey Pilotte is *very* talented). The colors will be amazing. The way in which the the PALs assemble (and disassemble) is ingenious. And overall, the PAL islands are done in "The Rancho Way".

But not to say that they are perfect. But I will leave this to the bloggers to give their opinions. And there should be photos of our visits as well.

RK

Site Visits to Children's Museums

In anticipation of rolling out our "Play and Learn" (PAL) islands the next few months, we will start making site visits to a few children's museums (CMs).

The journey started today with some staff visiting the studio of the fabricator who is making the PAL islands as well as a visit to the San Jose Children's Museums.

Other CMs on the schedule include Pretend City in Orange County, Kidspace in Pasadena, the Chino Youth Museum, the La Habra Children's Museum, the Denver Children's Museum and the Minnesota Children's Museum.

The idea is to get as many staff out to see these places and then blog about them right here.

So let the journey begin!