Children's Discovery Museum– Week 1 & 2

The Children's Discovery Museum is only 3 miles away from San Jose's international airport so the engineers decided to hang white floating foam figures to absorb the loud noise airplanes make when landing and taking off.

Team:

I'm interning in the Education Department at the museum. Jessica, my main supervisor, is the Director of Education and Programs. Then there's Evelyn, the Arts Program Manager, Laura, the Program Development Supervisor, Muneeba, the Arts Studio Supervisor, Bhek, from BioSITE, and Ashanti, the other intern (interning through a Stanford program). Despite Jessica being my supervisor, I mostly shadow Evelyn and Laura. When I'm with Evelyn I do stuff related to the art studio, but when I'm with Laura I do storytime. I love everyone, they are all so nice. 

The Education Department went to Pizza My Heart and Philz Coffee (best place ever) for lunch, with the exception of Laura and Bhek :( To the left we have Ashanti, in the center we have Jessica, and then I'm on the right. 

Art Studio:

The art studio used to be open only during the weekends, but a week before I joined as an intern the museum started opening the art studio during the week days. This meant additional prep was needed to sustain the art studio– this is where I come in. I was told to cut paper because the museum only had 40 x 20 inch paper and the current art project going on in the art studio was making Marvelous Mosaics. To make the mosaics, kids were given a black or white piece of paper (paper that I cut) and used recycled collage material or stickers to create their mosaic. Apart from cutting paper, I also facilitated the mosaic art project in the art studio with Muneeba and Ashanti.

The Marvelous Mosaic project went on for two whole weeks. During the weekdays I was with Muneeba or Ashanti in the art studio, but on Saturdays I was with Alexis, the current Artist-in-Residence. Artists-in-Residence are artists that work with the museum for 3 months to create art projects for the art studio. As Artists-in-Residence, they also get to display their artwork in the museum, but only throughout their employment period. Artists-in-Residence only come to the museum on the weekends. 

Around 300 people, children and parents included, visit the art studio. Being in the art studio might seem chaotic, but I oftentimes visit the art studio when I want a break from my other tasks because its relaxing and calming. 

I also help clean the art studio everyday before clocking out.

Storytime:

The museum holds storytime in the theater. Thirty minutes before storytime started, me and Laura headed to the theater to set up the chairs and materials.

My main focus as an intern is storytime. Storytime at the museum is a bit different from the other storytimes I've seen, and it's all thanks to Laura! Her goal at the museum is to spread early childhood education so she sings, creates games, and encourages the kids to dance during her storytimes to better engage the audience. 

My first week at the museum I simply helped her set up the chairs and materials for storytime. Then, I watched on the sidelines when she did the storytime reading and activities. The second week, however, I actually joined her. We read the book Giraffes Can't Dance. 

First, Laura did a quick introduction of the book by singing a song about the savanna with the same tune as Down by the Banks. While she sang, I used puppets to visually show what the song said. Then I read the book. After that, I led a matching game activity were we tried to match Gerald's expressions to human expressions (the name of the giraffe in the book is Gerald). When I finished, Laura played a song and we all danced the waltz, Scottish reel, tango, cha-cha, and our own dance (the book mentions these types of dances). 

I was very nervous at first because I knew I had to force myself to be goofy to entertain the kids, but it wasn't that bad. I learned to embrace my silly side and I think doing the storytime at the museum helped me prepare for the Maybe Something Beautiful storytime I had to do at the library. 

Performing Arts:

Almost every Wednesday and Saturday, the Children's Discovery museum hosts Music Fun Under the Sun, an event where local musicians or musical groups are invited to perform at the museum. My first day as an intern was on a Wednesday so my first task was to help set up the chairs for ZunZun’s performance. When the performance was about to start, I was on Greeter duty. I simply welcomed the parents and their children as they stepped out into the outdoor theater.

On week number 2, Octopretzel came to perform. They were amazing. It was interesting to see the kids dance along to their music. I personally think they did better than ZunZun because they were able to keep the attention of the children for longer (and even mine😩). What was significant about this performance, however, was that I had to make an announcement through the intercom to inform the museum visitors about Octopretzel's performance. I practiced the day before and spoke through the intercom to inform the visitors that the museum was closing. The next day I kept messing up the intercom announcement because I punched too many zeros and picked up the phone late. Overall, it was weird because it was my first time hearing my voice fill up the whole area, but at the same it was cool. Everyone kept saying I did a good job 😏.