nobody puts baby in a corner: giving infants the spotlight...exhibit development process adults...
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Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner: Giving Infants the Spotlight
Alli Leake
Director of Early Childhood Education
Brain Building Together:
A place for caregivers and their children ages
birth – three to play and spend time together
Bessie’s Diner
Sensations
Exhibit Development Process
● Successful 2014 IMLS grant
● 5 year process
80% of brain development happens in the first three
years of life
Caregivers can do simple things to promote healthy
development in the early years
Exhibit Development Process
Adults “…need to be sensitive to the child’s needs in the moment, flexible in choosing the way they intervene, and willing to follow the child’s lead.” -The Power of Play, Minnesota Children’s Museum
“An ‘environment of relationships’ is crucial for the development of a young child’s brain…” –Center on the Developing Child Harvard University
Exhibit Design & Sightlines
Goals for Grown-ups
1. Feel secure and comfortable
2. Observe and connect
3. Developmentally supportive interactions
Adult-Oriented Graphics & Activities
Staff Interactions
DocumentationWhere did you have a Brain
Building Moment today?
Early Outcomes
● Having a dedicated space for very young children is highly appreciated.
● Exhibits are successful in meeting their goals.
● Offering a comfortable space for infant feeding is well-worth the modest amount of space it takes.
● Crowding and “older children” can be challenges, but qualified staff help mitigate.
● Future opportunities
* Some photos taken by Mitchell Green
Alli Leake
Director of Early Childhood
Education
978-264-4200 x128
We can know everything about child development, but we have to remember that we know nothing about a child we’ve just met.
–Dr. Kevin Nugent, Brazelton Institute
Nobody Puts Baby In a Corner
Interactivity 2018
Becki Kipling
Manager, Early Childhood Development & Education
Museum of Science, Boston
Discovery Center
Discovery Center
Discovery Center Infant Area
Vision Development Mobile development process
Vision Development Mobile
“Self-Serve” Caregiver Materials
Grown Ups! You can use the exhibits and toys in the Infant
Area to learn more about how your baby thinks and learns.
The Interactive Aquarium exhibit is like a toy that has
multiple causes (different colored paddle-buttons) and
multiple effects (fish, seahorses, seaweed and lights).
You can use the activity cards to re-create experiments
conducted by the ECCL at MIT, and learn what your
baby understands about cause and effect.
Interactive Aquarium
Dr Laura Schulz, a cognitive scientist from the
Early Childhood Cognition Lab at MIT, has shown
that very young children can not only anticipate
an effect that happens in association with a cause,
but also that young children understand such causal
relationships better when an adult provides either
a “visual cue” or a “language cue”. In addition,
she found that older children (4–6 years old) will
continue exploring a toy if it is unclear which cause,
among multiple possible causes, creates a particular
effect in the toy. Although they did not look at
infants in their research, it is interesting to think
about what infants might know about cause
and effect relationships.
Results
Cause-and-Effect ExperimentExplore Cause-and-Effect
4–8 Month olds 9–12 Month olds
Method: We showed babies in the Discovery Center two
of the buttons on the fish-tank being pressed simultaneously
(one that controls the light and one that controls the fish),
and recorded their subsequent behavior exploring the buttons.
Each of these “baby-face” icons represents one baby. The
pictures below indicate which behavior each baby performed
after being shown two buttons pressed at the same time.
Touched two buttons at once
Touched both buttons one at a time
Touched one button only
What do Discovery Center babies do
when shown ambiguous evidence?
The Discovery Center has created partnerships
with local universities and museums across the
nation to help our visitors gain better access
to current research, and to consider what the
findings mean for children’s day-to-day activities.
Cognitive researchers are in the Discovery
Center each day, conducting studies and
answering questions about their work. Please
ask a volunteer if you would like to learn more.
Infant Activity Boxes
Source: Atlas of Hand Bone Age
PD: Taking baby’s perspective
First Time Parent Membership & Programming
Kia KarlenDirector of [email protected]
Heather DavisEarly Learning [email protected]
Wildernest Early Learning Gallery
First Time Parent MembershipPlanning and Partnership Development
• Member Focus Groups, spring 2017
• Health Care Partnerships, spring-summer 2017
• Soft Launch, June 2017 (100 Families)
• Create “Baby Guide to MCM”
• Create FTP Newsletter
• Member Morning FTP Orientations
• Full Launch, August-Sept. 2017
• New programming, Sept. 2017
• Press conference with sponsors, Oct. 2017
Early Explorers Play Group
Experts at Play
Baby’s First Halloween
Baby Date Night
Speed Diapering Challenge Baby Races
Reasons My Baby is Crying
Go the F@#k to Sleep
Science Together
Science Together
• Audience
– Caregivers with children 0-4
– 6 months and older participate
Science Together• Science Process Skills
– Observations: Exploring Worms
– Predictions: Baking Soda and Vinegar Reactions
– Categorizing: Sink and Float
– Problem Solving: Block Bowling
– Measuring: Flubber
– Exploring: Building with Ice
– Using Tools: Ice Excavation
Science Together
• Materials as an invitation
– Trays
– Familiar objects in novel ways
– Multiple Options for motor skills and development stages
Science Together
• Head Start Early Learning Outcome Framework– Cognitive
development 0-5 to align with math and science development
Science Together
Science Together
Resources
• Victoria Fiordalis
• 607.272.0600 ext 149
• www.museumtools.org
• https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/elof-ohs-framework.pdf
