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There is some ooey, gooey, and messy fun planned for the Program Room in October. Oobleck is a mixture of corn starch (polymer) and water that provides a sensory experience for kids. It has some interesting physical properties; it is both a liquid and a solid depending on how you play with it.

I sat down with Please Touch Museum's Arts Coordinator and she showed me how to make my own Oobleck at home. Here’s a recipe for Oobleck that is sure to get your little one experimenting!

Materials:
* 1 part water
* 2 parts corn starch
* Large bowl or tin to play with your OOBLECK in
* Food Coloring or Liquid Watercolor (optional)

Instructions:

Hint: Grown-ups can help with measuring but allow your child to help you make the oobleck mixture then experiment with pouring the corn starch and water. Please note that oobleck is not an exact science; it is an experiment so don't worry if your measurements are not perfect.

* Add one part water (1/2 cup of water)
* Add 2 parts corn starch (1 cup corn starch)
* Mix the ingredients well with a spoon or your hands (whatever your child’s preference)
* Your mixture should change between a liquid and a solid when handled because it is a polymer. Try to make your oobleck into different shapes- how does the oobleck react? Does it want to stay as a solid or as a liquid?
* Experiment with the ratio of water to corn starch to see which consistencies your prefer. Ask them what they think will happen next. For example, if we add more corn starch, what do you think will happen?

For a video of different ways to play with oobleck- visit this video on YouTube!

Hope you enjoy your experience and don't forget: it's okay to get a little messy!

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It comes full circle, at one point—the reading and research one does, the teaching one loves, the books one writes.  Dangerous Neighbors may be my twelfth book, but it is the first book for which I've ever created a teacher's guide.  The behind-the-scenes history of the Centennial can be found in these pages.  So can the irreducible Mrs. Gillespie and perhaps my favorite Philadelphian of all, George Childs.  But mostly this teacher's guide offers a range of classroom exercises—from team projects to personal essays to broad discussions about community, innovation, media, even classified ads.  I hope that this guide opens doors for both teachers and students who recognize that the past—its lessons, its influences, its legacies—is alive in the right now.

The guide can be found here.

Thanks to Egmont USA's Elizabeth Law, Mary Albi, Katie Halata, Nico Medina, Greg Ferguson, and Rob Guzman, who cheered this guide on, and made it better.  Thank you to Stacey Swigart for paying close attention.  Thank you to the original William for teaching me a dash of In Design.  And thanks to Elizabeth Mosier, for saying, Why don't you....

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When I was two years old, my mother sewed me a Humpty Dumpty doll (red-striped pants, black slippers, a pleasing egg face) and sat him upon my birthday cake, among the candles.  My mother's Humpty Dumpty remains with me today, atop a cabinet of curiosities, a little watermarked and a little saggy, loved by time. (The Humpty pictured here was photographed a few months ago at the Please Touch Museum.)

Lately I've been thinking about Humpty, particularly the Humpty we meet in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who has special privileges, so it seems to him, to use words just precisely the way he wants to.  Listen in:

    “I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
    Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
    “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
    “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
    “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
    Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

Maybe Humpty is a word smudger, an imperial word smudger at that, but he's most assuredly onto something when he says that verbs, some verbs, have a temper.  This fact I discover over and over each writing day, when an entire passage is destroyed by a flat or wrongly chosen verb.

What is wrong with this passage? I will ask myself.  Revisit your verbs, is most often the answer.

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Well, here is some fabulous news, just in, over the wire:  Dangerous Neighbors is an Indiebound Children's Pick for the Fall of 2010.

Is it possible to hug the independent booksellers of America over the internet?  Picture me trying!

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In the month of July, Please Touch Museum welcomed Child Life Specialist Interns from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to learn about our mission of learning through play. PTM’s Staff partners with the interns and teaches them how they can help to bring learning opportunities back to the hospital with them.

The interns had the chance to interact with our visitors while Painting with Emergency Vehicles in the Program Room. They helped to familiarize the children with emergency vehicles, the places these vehicles bring you to and explain that the people driving them are there to help. It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot too!


Learning About Elements of Art Through Play: Texture refers to the way that the surface of an object appears and can also refer to the way in which different elements of artwork come together to create an overall texture. Children build up their spatial awareness by interacting and playing with the world around them. Invite your child to explore texture and their surroundings by printing with toy cars, trucks or other vehicles. Using non-traditional materials provides a creative outlet for your child to learn about new painting tools and to play with texture.

Here's how you can bring the experience into your home:

Painting with Vehicles VROOM VROOM!


Materials:
• 3-5 Toy Vehicles that can roll
• Baking Sheet to hold paint
• Sheet of Paper
• Newspaper or tablecloth to cover workspace

Directions:
• Place newspaper or table cloth over surface you are going to use to paint on

• Place a small amount of paint (about 2-4 tablespoons) onto the baking sheet and spread around to create a thin layer of paint. When printing remember the less paint you use, the better quality print you will come out with.

• Encourage your child to choose which vehicle they would like to paint with. Ask open-ended questions about the vehicle they have chosen: What kind of vehicle is it? Who drives in it? What kind of wheels does it have? Does each of the wheels have a texture that you can see? Can you feel the texture? Do you want to paint with this car/truck?

• Invite your child to drive the vehicle through the paint then drive the vehicle around their paper. Feel free to make different shapes, zig zag and move in different directions
• Repeat the process with all you

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This week’s collections object is the game of Cootie! This bug inspired game was first introduced by the W.H. Schaper Manufacturing Company in 1948. Each game set included enough cootie parts (bodies, heads, legs, antennae and mouths) to construct four complete Cooties. The first player to completely assembly their Cootie win!

Put on your looking eyes and see if you can find it during your next visit! And while you are looking high and low, don’t forget to encourage curiosity by asking open-ended questions and engaging your child in the conversation. For example: What is your favorite bug? How does a spider crawl? Or simply go outside and see how many bugs you can find!

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Here at Please Touch Museum, we’re all about making healthy choices fun! If you’ve visited before, you know all about our ABC Games, and maybe you’ve even already signed up for our Stroller in the Park event. But did you know that Please Touch Museum also brings our healthy lifestyles initiative out to schools and community organizations? That’s right! Our Portable Play Programs bring a little taste of the museum out to your classroom, camp or library. I got the chance to go out on a visit with Claudia Setubal, Program Coordinator at Please Touch Museum, and I learned so much!

One of the cool things about Portable Play is that the workshop themes are based on the exhibits you know and love here at PTM. Each workshop has lots of different educational components, like story time, free play, creative dramatics, art activities, and lots more! I went with Claudia to the City Capers workshop she did last week.

In the museum, City Capers is the home of the Shoprite supermarket, the CHOP medical center and the Busy Build construction zone. The City Capers Portable Play workshop uses a play kit filled with toys, games, and books reflect the themes in the exhibit. The workshop teaches kids about healthy habits, like eating fruits and vegetables, moving your body, and getting checkups at the doctor’s office. Each component of Portable Play is designed to meet Pennsylvania’s early learning standards, focusing on areas like gross motor skills, expressive language, healthy and safe practices, and literacy comprehension.


The workshop was so much fun! We read Eric Carle’s From Head to Toe and learned how to do some animal-inspired yoga poses. It was so hard to keep my balance sometimes! My favorite pose was the cat pose. Meow! We also played with so many different toys- I got to wear a doctor’s coat and a stethoscope and listen to my heartbeat.

I can’t wait to try out a new Portable Play workshop. Maybe I’ll go see Flight Fantasy next? For more information about Please Touch Museum’s Portable Play Programs, click here.

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This week’s collections object is a Etch A Sketch! This mechanical drawing toy works by using a two knobs to control the vertical and horizontal movement of a stylus across a field of aluminum powder. The very first Etch A Sketch rolled off of the Ohio Art Co. production line on July 12, 1960! Over the past 50 years, there have been several versions of the Etch A Sketch, including the Animator, but none have been able to reach the popularity of the classic Etch A Sketch.

Put on your looking eyes and see if you can find it during your next visit! And while you are looking high and low, don’t forget to encourage curiosity by asking open-ended questions and engaging your child in the conversation.

For example: What would you draw on a Etch A Sketch? How big is the biggest Etch a Sketch? Or simply tell your child your favorite Etch A Sketch story from growing up.

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This week’s collections object is The Comet electric train! Produced by A.C. Gilbert Co. in the late 1930s as part of the American Flyer series of model trains. This toy train was a scale version of the actual Comet, built in 1935 by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad.

Put on your looking eyes and see if you can find it during your next visit! And while you are looking high and low, don’t forget to encourage curiosity by asking open-ended questions and engaging your child in the conversation. For example: What sound does a train make? Where would take a train ride to? Or simply tell your child the story of your first train ride.

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Happy Summer!
One of the best parts of summer is having extra time, and what better way to spend your quality time than creating art with your little one?



A friend of ours from the Delaware Valley Art Therapy Association, Megan Van Meter, LPC, ATR-BC, shared this helpful list of tips for Responding to Children’s Artwork:

“A piece of artwork is a piece of communication, not a piece of clutter. When a child (or anyone, for that matter) shows you her or his art, here are some guidelines for responding in a way that lets the individual know you are listening to her or him.

DO:
• Express appreciation that the work is being shared with you (“It’s really great that you wanted to share this with me.” In doing this you communicate that you are interested in your relationship with your child.

• Accept each piece of art as valid in as-is condition (“I see this must be about something important, or you wouldn’t have made art about it.”) In doing this you communicated you accept the child the child as having validity and worth

• Ask the child to discuss the world (“Can you tell me a little about this?”) In doing this you communicate you are interested in understanding the child’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions.

• Recognize the effort that went into the making the art (“You used up the whole sheet of paper- that really must have taken a lot of work!”) In doing this you communicate that effort, not ability, is necessary for success.

Remember: appreciating a child’s efforts, not her or his ability, is what paves the road for the individual’s success. This applies to artmaking as well as behavior in general!”


This weekend at Please Touch Museum, chalk artist Jeannie Moberly will be participating in our first Chalk It Up! Sidewalk Chalk event to celebrate the start of summer! The first 500 kids (ages 12 and under) through the door on Saturday will receive FREE pack of Crayola Sidewalk Chalk from the Crayola Factory. Visitors will be able to watch Jeannie as she draws a unique mural on the ground outside of the Carousel House. We can't wait!

http://www.pleasetouchmuseum.org/events/calendar/

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If you were asked to teach a single story or essay over a ten-day period—had to narrow your choice to just one life-changing text, what would you do?  That's the question that faces me today.  I've narrowed my thinking to these options:

"Sonny's Blues," by James Baldwin
"I Stand Here Ironing," by Tillie Olsen
"Souvenir," by Jayne Anne Phillips
"Accident and its Scene," by Terrence des Pres
"Memory and Imagination," by Patricia Hampl

And you?

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For a few lovely hours this week, I let every worry go and toured the Please Touch Museum, now located in Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, on the former Philadelphia Centennial grounds.  Here I am, within Alice's Wonderland.  Untrammeled by self-doubt.  Unchased by corporate demands.  Unsure of why I've been so knotted up, to begin with.

We have to let some things go.  We have to let ourselves free. 

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