31 Days of Family Fun: Family Museum

Flickr, Oakley Originals

Create your own family museum in your home!  It’s fun for everyone and might give you some added insight into members of your family.  The museum can be as simple as a shelf or small table or more elaborate like an entire display case or shelving unit.  What do you put in a family museum?  Well, it can be a joint display like everyone’s favourite items and souvenirs from a recent family trip or outing like a visit to the beach or a family crafting session.  Or you can pick a theme – something holiday or seasonally related or just something random – and see what everyone contributes as their take on that theme.  Maybe you’ll have a rule that for this week’s (or month’s or whatever) display that everything shared has to be handmade!

Flickr, Laineys Repertoire

You can also take turns as “curator” and allow that person to decide what they would like to display.  Maybe they want to show off their favourite collection (hockey cards? sea shells? Happy Meal toys?) or make a display of a mixture of their favourite items or maybe the current curator can “challenge” the next to come up with a display on a particular topic.  If it’s your turn as the parent, you might want to take the opportunity to make an exhibit that is not only interesting but educational.  Your child has shown an interest in rocks?  Put together a display all about different types of rocks.  Your child is learning about birds at school?  Make an exhibit all about birds, their different styles of beaks, the different types of foods they eat and so on to reinforce what they’re learning.  As an extra element to this, you can hold an “opening night reception” for each new display, allowing the curator some time in the spotlight to tell about their exhibit and answer any questions.  Celebrate with snacks and a toast with juice!

Flickr, D Sharon Pruitt

A family museum can be a great way to teach each other some new things, to learn more about each other, and to practise putting together a display – a useful skill for the many school projects that will come along.  If your child is involved in Scouting, there are often badges related to setting up such a display as well.  You might even want to start off with a visit to your local museum to show your kids what types of displays they have.  You can often even arrange a brief visit to meet the curator and have them explain what they do.  It’s a great learning experience and way to open up new areas of arts and culture to your children.  A bonus to all of this is that instead of stepping on all those Legos and other such items your child might leave lying on the floor, you can let them turn them into a museum display up on the shelf.  It shows that you value the things they make but saves you from the clutter (and from hurting your feet AND their toys when you inadvertently step on them!).  Family museums can be a simple way of honouring the members of your family and their interests – but most of all, they can be a lot of fun!

This blog post is part of a month long series.  It’s a blog hop of sorts – many different bloggers are taking part, presenting a variety of topics in a 31 day series.

To check out the other participants in this, go here:

http://www.thenester.com/2011/09/31-days-participants.html

To catch up on the previous posts in my series, 31 Days of Family Fun, go here:

http://cynchronicity.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/31-days-of-family-fun-the-basics/

While you’re here, if you like what you see, I’d love for you to become a follower/subscriber of my blog!