Learning at The Manchester Museum

New dates for Treasure Basket events for babies at The Manchester Museum!

carolb3 — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:55:09 +0000

Following the success of the Treasure Baskets events in November we have planned new dates for 2012! The sessions are for babies who are able to sit unsupported or experimenting with mobility and their adults. These sessions will initially take place in the Nature Discovery gallery with some sessions taking place in the Play & Learn family area. The following images show sessions from this year when babies were able to enjoy exploring lots of different objects, textures, tastes and sounds.

Babies were able to make choices from a wide variety of materials and objects often initiating the play with familiar adults and having lots of fun as they copied actions too! Other floor based materials were available for exploration such as an Autumn themed floor tray containing lots of colours and textures along with some friendly characters!

New Dates and Times for 2012

Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 and 1:30-2:30

January 10th, 24th

February 7th, 21st

March 6th, 20th

Big Saturday Family Events at The Manchester Museum!

carolb3 — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:59:42 +0000

The Big Saturday Family events happen once a month here at The Manchester Museum with each event having a different focus; this year has seen events taking place focusing on Froglife, Ancient Egypt, Autumn on the allotment and Chocolate! Most activities are drop-in and are free, depending on the activity some may need to be booked on the day and may cost up to £1:50. A more recent addition to the Big Saturday events is a sensory and exploratory area especially for babies and children aged 0-5 and their adults and families. The following images show how much fun everyone had at the Ancient Egypt event.

Fun with Pyramids!

Creating our Egyptian landscapes of Pyramids and the River Nile!

Team work!

There were lots of other activities for 0-5s and their families on the day including treasure baskets and light box play.

Look out for the Big Saturday events taking place in 2012 on the following dates:

28 January : Bug art

25 February : Manchester

and

10 March: Jurassic climate change

Matthew Moss: What is Archaeology?

Cat — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:49:32 +0000

Recently, Bryan Sitch, our wonderful Curator of Archaeology visited Matthew Moss High School as part of an ‘Archaeology Day’ they had planned. He provided some of their Year 8 students with a talk on ‘What is Archaeology’ in order to inspire and inform them on this fascinating subject. He took along some basic finds from our collection and engaged the students in exploring what they thing archaeology is and how it is a destructive, but potentially very informative, process. According to the teachers, this really helped in increasing students’ understanding of the subject.

We;re really lucky that we have great curators who work with us in the Learning Team to make our programme successful and although we don’t currently offer Outreach Curator talks on a regular basis, sometimes we can organise the occasional visit here and there on special request. If this is something you might be interested in, please contact me: catherine.lumb@manchester.ac.uk

Treasure Basket Fun in Nature Discovery!

carolb3 — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 12:48:43 +0000

Looking for Early Years activites in cultural institutions?

The Treasure Basket is a unique approach, which was developed in by Elinor Goldschmied in 1994. A seated baby is offered a range of sensory and household objects which are contained in a rigid basket which is low sided to allow the baby access to the contents and opportunity for exploration and choice.

Join us for Treasure Basket Play sessions at the Manchester Museum! These sessions are free for babies who can sit unsupported and their adults. Find us in the Nature Discovery Gallery on the 1st floor.

Dates and Times are:

Tuesday 11th November 10:30-11:30 and 1:30-2:30

Year 9 Free Workshop Offer

Cat — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:06:01 +0000

The Manchester Museum is offering a limited number of History workshops for free!

Eurocentrism and Africa

Engage your Year 9 students in exploring the diversity of culture within Africa and encourage them to discuss what influence European contact had on local areas. Using Museum galleries and object handling students will have the chance to explore the relationship between Africa and Europe, with a focus on the preiod of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and during the height of British Empire.

FREE Sessions are available on the following dates:

Monday 7^th November

10.30am-12.30pm

Monday 14^th November

1pm-3pm

Monday 28^th November

1pm-3pm

Alternate dates and times are available on request, but may cost the usual workshop price of £75.

To find out more, or to book one of our limited FREE sessions, please contact Cat Lumb either via email: catherine.lumb@manchester.ac.uk or telephone: 0161 3061765.

Planet Dinosaur

Alexa — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 07:02:59 +0000

From 1^st to 9^th October, a herd of 6 spinosaurus’ took residence in our Living Worlds gallery as part of the BBC’s Planet Dinosaur tour. To make the most of this opportunity, we developed an associated workshop for KS3 students which over 175 students took part in last week.

The Curator of Earth Sciences, David Gelsthorpe and myself devised two additional workshops which complement the BBC’s ‘Build their own spinosaurus’ activity that utilised parts of our palaeontology collection. In the workshop, students became paleontologists and investigated real fossils deciding out of 6 different specimens which one was a real dinosaur egg and which one was a real dinosaur bone. In addition, students measured and analysed a trackway of dinosaur footprints to figure out what it told us about dinosaur behavior. This workshop enabled students to get hands on with the fantastic objects from our collection and find out more about the research work that paleontologists do within the university.

Since the spinosaurus are no longer with us, they have continued on their journey round the country up to Newcastle, we are going to continue to offer the Dinosaur Footprint and Paleontology skills making a 1 hour investigative dinosaur based workshop. Please get in touch if you would like to book it.

Archaeology in the Park

Cat — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 08:18:04 +0000

Recently, pupils from Manchester Academy, Aquinas College, Medlock Primary School and Heald Place Primary School were invovled with the archaeological investigations that took place at Whitworth Park as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund supported excavations by the University of Manchester. The project involves partners from the University of Manchester Department of Archaeology, The Manchester Museum, the Whitworth Art Gallery, Friends of Whitworth Park and the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relation Resource Centre.

During their time on-site in the Park students were able to learn more about its past features, such as the lake and bandstand, and were provided with an introduction to archaeological field techniques and recording methods. They were encouraged to part in the process of recording, processing and cataloguing finds, and then use these to explore aspects of past activities and the material culture of Edwardian life.

All students appeared to relish the opportunity to be involved and take part in the actual process of archaeological digging, learning new techniques and gaining hands-on experience in this practical subject. You can see photographs and comments from Manchester Academy’s visit here.

To find out more about the project, visit their blog: www.whitworthparklife.wordpress.com/

Lifelab on Film!

Alexa — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:34:15 +0000

Student hard at work in Lifelab

Find out more about the kind of science workshops that take place in our Lifelab at The Manchester Museum. Click on the different session names to watch some brand new short films about the lifelab and the science programme that takes place there.

PCR, Forensics, A-Level Study Days, General Lifelab workshops.

These videos are currently being displayed in the Lifelab to show visitors what this dynamic space is used for. The films were made by Alejandra Silva who has done a great job in showing the energy and enthusiasm of the students taking part in the sessions. We hope you like them!

New term excitement

Cat — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:56:36 +0000

Image, heads down - planning how to display things in the museum

Pens, paper and lesson plans at the ready: the new school year is upon us! And how quickly the summer seems to have whizzed by. We’ve been busy here at The Museum reviewing our entire learning programme and working on new ideas to revamp some of the old favourites whilst also racking our brains for brand new workshop topics and activties. In addition we’re also immensely excited about the upcoming opening of the new Unearthed: Ancient Egypt temporary exhibition, which is going to be a fantastic interactive space encouraging visitors to explore Egyptology and Archaeology with our very own Dr. Digby (Terry Deary): What more could you ask for?

Our new programming is now up on the website, and we will be updating this throughout September with lots more information and resources for teachers as we build up to the opening of Unearthed at the end of the month. In the meantime why not see if you can bring our collection into your classroom via the Museum of Mystery?

New Primary Learning Co-ordinator

debbiedoran — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 08:17:59 +0000

Image, touching an Egyptian object from the Museum stores

Hello everyone, I’m Debbie Doran the Primary Learning Co-ordinator at the Museum. I just wanted to say Hello! and give you a taste of the wonderful things to come!

There will be a brand new Temporary Egypt Exhibition on the ground floor opening on September 30th. This will be an interactive, explorative and new insight into the wonderful past of Ancient Egypt and Archaeological skills. Come and explore the new exhibition with your family and friends soon!

Why not visit the Whitworth Art Gallery and Park soon for a family open day exploring archaeology and the history of the park too? Or visit the new Living Worlds gallery opened in April this year. There’s lots to do over the Summer so have a look at The Manchester Museum’s website for more details. Enjoy!