Batson Safety Checks

• Date: Wednesday, February 22 (11:00 am-2:00 pm)

Children can learn about the importance of helmet and car seat safety! Stop by MCM Wednesday, February 22 from 10am to 1pm for Batson’s Children Hospital and Kohl’s Cares Helmet and Car Seat Safety Checks. This check gives children a fun and engaging way to learn about the importance of helmet and car seat safety.

 

Visiting Artist: Kate Browne

• Date: Sunday, March 18 (1:30 pm-4:30 pm)

Little Cocoons and The Wishes: everyday people making extraordinary things

Bring your hopes, dreams, wishes and your TRASH to MCM on Sunday, March 18, and create something magical with them!  Participate in an international sculpture series, Cocoon, by making Little Cocoons with artist Kate Browne at the Mississippi Children’s Museum.

Sunday, March 18 workshop times:

• 1:30
• 2:30
• 3:30
• 4:30

Activities will take place in the MCM Classroom.

20 participants at each workshop; children ages 5-11 accompanied by a caregiver. Tickets are available 15 minutes before the start of each workshop on a first-come, first-served basis.

Parents and caregivers are also invited to participate at this workshop!  Please allow children to claim tickets first.  Any tickets not claimed by children at the time each workshop begins will be given to adults who desire to participate.

Little Cocoons and The Wishes is a partnership between the Mississippi Children’s Museum, the Mississippi Museum of Art, and artist Kate Browne.  The Mississippi Children’s Museum is partnering with Kate and the art museum to provide our visitors a chance to contribute to this international participatory sculpture series.  Little Cocoons will hang inside the giant 26 foot long by 10 foot high cocoon, and each cocoon will contain the hopes and dreams of its maker.  Together the cocoons will represent the community’s collective hopes for the future.

Before you visit, take a walk around your neighborhood or home and collect found everyday items.  Place them in a large zipper top baggie and bring them to the Little Cocoon workshop.  No craft materials please.  We will use everyone’s found items to create our Little Cocoons.

Examples of items brought to past Little Cocoon workshops are:

• Small Objects: toys, baby shoe, colored and clear glass and pottery shards, human hair, flowers, handwritten notes, bottle caps, photographs, guitar picks, house key, earrings and CD’s.

• Materials to wrap or enclose the object: corn husks, bamboo, cane, metal screening, plastic, paper, coated electrical wire, paper mache, fabric, leaves, woven place mat.

• Materials to bind or tie the cocoon together: duct tape, wire, coated wire, string, thread, strips of plastic sheeting, fabric, yarn.

• People sometimes decorated their cocoons with flowers or paint. Some sewed personal notes inside of leaves with thread.

During the workshop, after you build your Little Cocoon, you will have an opportunity to record your hopes, dreams and wishes and to talk about your creative process (how you chose your materials, what your cocoon represents, etc.).  You’ll talk to Kate one-on-one about your Little Cocoon and describe what materials you used.  You’ll also record the hope or wish that your Little Cocoon represents.  You can decide to tell Kate what is most meaningful to you!  The audio recordings will be edited and will play inside the giant cocoon at the MS Museum of Art on March 24.

This is what Kate Browne has to say about Little Cocoons:

“The Little Cocoon and the Wishes are the individual voices within the community. All the Little Cocoons will be hung inside the giant Cocoon in the new Art Garden at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Little Cocoons are a way to creatively express yourself by bringing together everyday items that you choose and put together to create an extraordinary little cocoon that will represent you. The Wishes are a way to express your wishes –your faith or feelings –through recorded story.  When the giant Cocoon’s interior is illuminated, both the structure itself as well as the individual Cocoons hanging within will be revealed. Recorded wishes are audible inside and just outside the sculpture, playing anonymously.  I see the process of creating little cocoons as a way for adults and children to build small shelters for their hopes and dreams and to hear their voices expressed in a world community of many Cocoon builders and wishes. There is no right or wrong in making Little Cocoons. No mistakes. All stories are anonymous. It is a wonderful, fun and meaningful experience.”

Watch this short video about how the Cocoon is created:  http://brownebarnes.com/cocoon/?page_id=3189

More info about Cocoon Jackson: http://brownebarnes.com/cocoon/?page_id=3677

 

Visiting Artist: Blanca Perez Love

• Date: Sunday, February 26 (1:30 pm-4:30 pm)

Blanca Perez Love will bring her pottery wheels to give children ages 5-11 accompanied by a caregiver a chance to work on one of the wheels to learn how she makes different kinds of ceramics. We are working with wet clay, so please…..Dress for a mess!

Location:  Outdoor Welty Porch

Time:  1:30-4:30

No specific workshop times or tickets needed for this experience!

 

Dr. Seuss’ Silly Birthday Extravaganza

• Date: Saturday, March 3 (11:00 am - 3:00 pm)

Celebrate Dr. Seuss’ Silly Birthday, Saturday, March 3 with the MCM. What better way to celebrate this definitive author’s birthday than at the most inspirational and creative place around!

The Silly Birthday Extravaganza begins at 11:00 a.m. and will last until 3:00 p.m. Museum guests can expect a visit from a few of Dr. Seuss’ most popular characters such as the Cat in the Hat and Thing One and Thing Two. Various activities will be set up in the museum’s five galleries celebrating the famous, children’s book author and illustrator. Children can make Oobleck in World at Work, learn a little about the crazy rhyming vocabulary used by Dr. Seuss in the Literacy Gallery, and even watch a local chef demonstrate the art of Green Eggs and Ham in Between the Lions.

With such a strong focus on children’s literacy, MCM looks to promote literacy through fun inspirational play. Join MCM in celebrating the birthday of children’s book author and illustrator, and as Dr. Seuss explained, “the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn the more places you’ll go”

2011 Dr. Seuss’ Silly Birthday was a HUGE success!

 

Celebrate Black History Month

• Date: Saturday, February 25 (10:00 am-2:00 pm)

This February, Mississippi Children’s Museum is celebrating Black History Month in a different way! At MCM we love our state, but did you know there is another Mississippi on the other side of the world? All the way over in Liberia there are several cities named after cities in our own state! On February 25, Alan Huffman, author of Mississippi in Africa, will be here at MCM to tell us all about how a culture so far away is related to us right here in Mississippi.

 

WINGS Performing Arts presents School House Rock, Live!

• Date: March 30 & 31

Book your field trip for March 30 today!

The WINGS Performing Arts of the Lynn Meadows Discovery Center will be doing a live performance of School House Rock March 30 at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. and also on March 31 at 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m in the Traveling Exhibit Hall. We also have field trip spots available for the March 30 performance at 11:00 a.m.

 

Spring into Science, Spring Break day-camp

• Date: March 13-March 16 (9:00am-3:00pm), March 13-March 16 (9:00am-3:00pm)

Spring into Science Day-Camp

March 13 – March 16

9:00 am-3:00 pm

**Spring into Science is now FULL**

Join us this spring break for a four day jam-packed adventure through the world of science. Each day we will focus on a different theme that will teach children about recycling, gravity, centrifugal force, chemistry and so much more!

Parents or guardians of children in first through fifth grades can register for “Spring into Science” camp on our website beginning Tuesday, January 17. Camp tuition is $175 per child and will cover supplies for over 30 activities and experiments, a healthy morning snack, your child’s very own lab coat, an hour of play in the museum each day, and personal instruction from museum staff and volunteers!! **We will offer a multiple child discount of $15 off for each additional child that attends the camp.

Before and after care will be available at an additional charge of $5/each morning and $10/each afternoon. A morning snack is included in the camp tuition and a pre-paid lunch option through the museum café will also be available. Children also have the option of bringing their own lunch each day.

Tuesday:  Amazing Agriculture
Come learn about Mississippi’s most important industry and how it affects your life every day.  Plant your own “Glove Garden,” make recycled paper, and much more.

Wednesday:  Happy! Healthy! Human!
Do experiments and activities dealing with the human body.  Find out about the systems in your body with messy, silly activities.

Thursday:  Force and Energy
How many potatoes does it take to change a light bulb? I don’t know, but we will see how many it takes to light one up!  We will also be doing fun experiments to learn about magnetism, gravity, and centrifugal force.

Friday:  Kitchen Chemistry
Be a mad scientist!  Learn about chemical reactions and make a few of your own using household ingredients.  Make slime, elephant toothpaste, rock candy, and more while learning the scientific principles behind your creations!