Sandra Candelas

Child Dev -109

Professor: Alexander

The Childrens Museum

On October 24, 2013, I visited the Childrens museum located at Navy Pier along with
my little sister and my two children. This was actually my first time visiting the museum. Before
the visit, I thought that I was going to see mostly art and that I was going to see childrens art
projects. To my surprise, parts of the museum reminded me of a class room but more like an
oversized classroom. I enjoyed watching my eighteen month old son engage in pretend play and
other children interacting with each other. I noticed that toddlers had a harder time sharing toys
and interacting with other children. My son was one of them. He encountered a little girl that
didnt want to share any toys and kept yelling at him. The little girl was playing with pretend
food in a table and when my son approached her, she would yell, no! He got scared of her and
approached me. He appeared to have gotten discouraged from playing for that moment, but he
was able to resume play after I encouraged him. As discussed in class, toddlers are more
egocentric at this stage, but eventually, their play shifts to cooperative play.
I do find the museum to be a good resource for children and for field trips since it
promotes experiences with resources not found in a typical classroom setting. For instance, at
The Dinosaur Expedition younger children explored while older preschoolers pretended to be
archeologists. The Dinosaur Expedition is an example of an outside classroom experience. It
prompts children to learn new terminology related to Dinosaur fossil skeletons. Children also
pretend to unearth a fossilized dinosaur .At the Museum Children are able to pretend play in
various settings such as The Fire Department exhibition .The expedition itself consists of a
pretend sleeping room for firefighters, the pole were they slide down when called for duty and

the fire truck so that children can engage in creative play. In this section, I observed many
children pretending to be firefighters, using the hoses from the truck, and smaller children seem
to be exploring. This activity prompted creative thinking since older children have a basic
understanding of what a firefighter is. Moreover, The Ready Pet Go exhibition is another display
that I found to be interesting. It had oversized pet furniture and beds. Children used their
imagination and pretended to be a dog or a cat. It even had dress up clothes for children to
pretend to be pets. Books were available to children so they could read about pets and expend
their knowledge. My son was played with a stuffed dog while laying inside one of the oversized
pet beds. He kept repeating actions and to my understanding, he was reinforcing what he had
already learned. According to Mayesky (2012), Piaget describes play as a child assimilating and
reinforcing learned concepts. Activities of this sort also aids sensory development with the many
different textures in the materials provided.
My favorite exhibition was the Tree House Trails exhibition. At the very entrance, there
was this cascade structure and at the bottom, a river like model where children can play with
plastic fish inside water. Children pretended to catch real fish with the fishing nets provided. On
the left side, there was a cabin and inside the cabin, a little child size kitchen with pretend food
and a play table. There was also a vegetable garden on the outside of the cabin. Further back was
a play yard designed as a tree house. Moreover, I also enjoyed a section from the museum that
looked like circle time section of a classroom. There were couches and a big round rug with
other soft cushions available for children to sit on. Staff members were singing and dancing to
music and children gathered to participate while others explored. I thought it was very
stimulating for children.

On the other hand, my least favorite exhibit was one called Michaels Museum of Tiny
Treasures. I know that this particular exhibit is for aesthetic appreciation, but there wasnt as
much hands on activities at that particular section. Therefore, I didnt find it as interesting as the
others. It does, though, create an aesthetic sense for children. Children can view tiny doll house
furniture and a wide variety of trinkets.
Finally, I consider this museum to be full of activities that promote all four
developmental domains in children. Physical, since children get to actively participate in
activities; social/emotional, children are socializing with other children and learning how to
control their own emotions; cognitive, children are gathering known knowledge and gaining
more, and language development, children are expending language when new knowledge is
acquired. This was my first time coming to the museum, and I will definitely consider visiting it
more often as a resource for learning.