Children's Discovery Museum Week 3 – Melanie

 7/19, Wednesday

Mayx + TRYN perform in the outdoor Cadence Amphitheater for Music Fun Under the Sun on Wednesday, July 19th. Mayx + TRYN are Stanford alumni and acquaintances with Evelyn. 

I started the day by completing the small tasks Evelyn told me to do before welcoming Mayx + TRYN into the museum. I took the standing sign holder, water, and a cart for the performers to use when hauling in their instruments and gear into the museum down to the amphitheater. I then went to greet the volunteers for the day with Evelyn. Together (the volunteers, Evelyn, and I) arranged the chairs in rows for the audience to sit on. I then made an announcement through the intercom, informing our museum guests about the performance. After the performance ended, we put everything back in its place and I headed to the art studio. 

We also got a new Artist-in-Residence, Nancy! This means we are no longer making mosaics in the art studio. When a new Artist-in-Residence joins the team, they bring along new art activities to be done in the art studio. Nancy, as a result, came up with the idea of painting with natural pigments. Ashanti was mainly in charge of finding the right paper and ratios of spices/hibiscus petals/coffee to water, but I helped her make the watercolor pigments. Together we filtered turmeric, paprika, hibiscus petals, and ground coffee with boiling water to create the paint. After that, I stayed in the art studio for the rest of the day, and like always, helped cut paper! 

A random mosaic a kid left in the art studio. I like the creativity!

The toddler table. Each cup holder has a WHAT AM I? paper attached. When unfolded, the ingredient used to create the watercolor is revealed.

The beautiful stack of paper I cut for the watercolor activity!

7/20, Thursday

Doing storytime in both Spanish and English because the library I did the storytime at is Latinoamericana.


Today was the day... I did my storytime at the library. Only two kids showed up, nevertheless, it was fun. Laura helped me prepare a color mixing activity to do alongside the reading of Maybe Something Beautiful. I wanted the kids to do more than just color in a book so I created my own art activity. I decided to cover a poster board with light gray felt (to represent the sky), dark gray imitation leather (to represent the concrete), and white fleece (for clouds). I then created small houses out of cardstock and painted them gray; all with the purpose of mimicking a depressing gray city. I then brought recycled collage paper and stickers to the library so the kids could decorate and add color to their houses. When we finished, I added velcro to the house and we attached the houses to the landscape. Even though there were only two kids, they were so involved in the activity and enthusiastic to make more than one house (which I had made enough of). 


The oldest kid making a sign for the city. He decided to call our small city La Sudan (he meant to write La Ciudad).


A closer look of the final product. 

7/21, Friday

The most significant event of the day was Ashanti's send-off. Today was the last day Ashanti was going to be interning at the museum. We all decided to bring her favorite snacks and make a small party for her. The whole Education Department and Vivian, the Visual Media Specialist of the museum, got together and they all shared professional advice to Ashanti. My favorite was Evelyn's: 
Life is like juggling balls made out of glass and rubber. There are things that, like rubber, can bounce back into your life, while other things, such as glass, can easily break and never be replaced... so be wise. Learn to identify which things in life act as rubber and which are glass because this way, handling life will be much easier. 
After Ashanti's send-off, Vivian recorded me giving a quick description on my internship experience at the museum to post on social media. We had to record so many times because I kept messing up 😀. When that ended, I stayed in the art studio for the rest of the day.

7/22, Saturday

Artists-in-Residence come to the museum only during the weekends so I mostly stayed in the art studio helping Nancy clean and facilitate the activity. In addition to helping Nancy, I reviewed the storytime plan for Tuesday with Laura. The week before (week 2) I did storytime with Laura, but because she is going on vacation next week, I will be doing the storytime alone. We decided that I will be reading Maybe Something Beautiful since it was already fresh in my mind! We brainstormed a mural activity to do before reading the book, and a color freeze dance to do after I finished reading the book. I then practiced the whole storytime in front of her. The museum was also going to host Play Your Way in the evening, an event were children with autism and their parents can visit the museum. For prep, I had to separate the water beads (orbeez) from the water with a slotted spoon because we had no strainer, it was definitely an experience. 

Inside the art studio kids can hang their art work.

Out of all the artwork that people leave in the art studio we choose a couple to archive for future reference. 

Me doing orbeez stuff. The water beads will be used for a sensory activity the children who attend Play Your Way can participate in.


7/25, Tuesday

Today I did two storytime sessions. One at 11:30 am and the other at 2 pm. I always get nervous because I have to be animated and goofy to retain the children's attention, but I have come to realize that being in front of children is much more calming than when I'm presenting to adults. In short, it's kinda fun. 


There are usually more people in the first storytime session.

The second storytime. It's funny because usually the afternoon session of storytime has younger kids. The colorful poster in the back is the mural activity Laura made.



THANKS:)

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