Playscape
Help us make Playscape even better!
The Playscape gallery—a family favorite for more than 20 years—will be renovated in spring 2012, once funding is in place. We'd like to hear what you think about plans for the space. Please stop by the Playscape gallery testing station and let us know your ideas or suggestions. With your help, we can build an even better childhood experience for families!
For children 5 and under
Play is an integral part of a child’s social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development. The activities in Playscape are designed to provide young children with an opportunity to learn through the method that is most successful for them—play.
Hands-on play areas:
- Arts Garden—create using art materials
- Construction Site—construct imaginary environments using different types and sizes of blocks
- Babyscape—explore using your senses (perfect for infants and toddlers ages two and younger)
- Family Room—read stories, relax, and calm or nurse a baby
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Fantasy Forest—pretend play as you learn about people, animals, and objects in the playhouse, garden, birdhouse, and tree house - Magic Wall—express your thoughts and feelings using magnets and puzzles
- Water and Sand Tables—splash, pour, and measure while you learn basic science concepts
All children must be accompanied by an adult in Playscape.
Re-Envisioning Playscape—The Answers to Your Questions
When will Playscape close? When will the new gallery open?
Playscape will close in or after March of 2012, and the museum plans to open the new experience in the spring of 2013.
What will the museum offer for young children while a new experience is being built?
The museum knows that Playscape is one of its most popular and important galleries, and is committed to offering early learning experiences while the new gallery is being built, including The Adventures of MR. POTATO HEAD® and a temporary experience that will be called Mr. Bear’s Playhouse. Many of the most popular elements of Playscape will be in Mr. Bear’s Playhouse, including the sand table and parts of Babyscape. Other appropriate interactive elements will be added from the museum’s traveling exhibit, Bob the Builder™—Project: Build It. Limitations with the building’s structure prohibit the inclusion of a water table in Mr. Bear’s Playhouse, but an expansive water play area will be part of the new early learning experience.
What will the new permanent gallery be like?
The design of the new early learning gallery will incorporate four experiential worlds for young children and their families to explore.
The Natural World will allow children to connect to the environment and living things (e.g., animals) through dress-up and role-play, sorting and classifying natural materials and patterns, and physical exploration of model habitats such as an underwater environment. The Natural World will include a water feature.
The Invented World will feature blocks, balls, simple machines, invention stations, and other interactive elements that encourage manipulation and motor skill development as precursors to science, math, and engineering concepts.
The Aesthetic World will allow young children to practice a variety of arts, from drawing and sculpting to making music and role-playing.
The Sensory World will be an area primarily for infants and toddlers who are developing their understanding of the world through visual, aural, and sensory motor stimulation. It will include areas for climbing, rolling, walking, grasping, and sound play.
The new gallery will also offer a nursing area, a family restroom, and information on parenting.
