I’ve been following Kid’s in Museums on twitter for a while and whilst I was trying to work out what to do during half term I thought I would read more about them and what they are striving for.
Kids in Museums is a charity that works to make museums open and welcoming to all families. They have developed the Kids in Museums Manifesto and the Family Friendly Museum Award have been developed to encourage and guide museums and galleries across the country to make family visits engaging and enjoyable.
Over 300 museums have pledged their support to the Kids in Museums Manifesto 2012 – 20 ways to make a museum family friendly which lays out the expectations for musuems to be welcoming to children and families and suggest ways that this can be achieved. Things like being flexible in family ticket pricing and events because families come in all shapes and sizes, providing ‘hands on’ exhibits rather than saying ‘don’t touch’, providing trails / guides for families to enjoy together and displaying things low enough for children to see with simple explanations. It also suggests making sure that there are plenty of good toilets with room for pushchairs and baby changing facilities and providing healthy, good-value food, high chairs and unlimited tap water in cafés.
For more information on Kids in Museums visit their website http://www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk/ or follow them on twitter http://twitter.com/kidsinmuseums
Museums are great places for helping children learn and all children should be encouraged to visit. I’m pleased to say that some of our local musuems are listed as supporting the campaign so we’ll go and have a visit and I’ll let you know how we get on and what we learn. Please comment and add your suggestions for good museums to visit too.
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