Hi all again,
Thanks so much to everyone who responded. There's a
lot of enthusiasm and a great deal of knowledge and experience out there! There
are a lot of people I will be contacting soon.
The main thrust seems to be that a lot of people
are doing things for 2 or 3-5 year olds but not many doing things for younger
children. There was some disagreement about using old, replica or new objects
but I would say the whole point of taking your child to a museum is to see or
handle old items, with replica a second best. Generally on the health and safety
side - stay away from lead paint, possibly soft rubber and copper. Look at BS
standards (link below). If parents handle with babies, then other health
and safety concerns are mitigated somewhat.
Big point - baby and carer/parent rather than
mother and baby.
Quite a few people wanted to know what the
responses were on this question so I have collated them below:
Places to visit and people to
contact
Objects for handling
- Carved comb, sheeps wool, wood shavings, carved
wood/ stone. Anything that can be shaken to make a noise.
- Anything with any sort of toxic paint is a no for a
start. If you’re using wooden objects they’d need to be very finely sanded so
there was no chance of getting splinters out of them! Anything that breaks
when dropped or banged off the floor is probably a bad idea too, in case that
creates sharp edges (so no ceramics, glassware, etc). Fabrics with small
fibres are probably not a good idea either. Replica items
might be the way to go, because you can be sure they meet safety standards.
It’s harder to do so with genuine objects. Though I know that might defeat
some of the point...
- Multi-sensory objects
- You need to think size for choking hazards,
sharp edges, possible splinters from wood as well as paint. Also the lead
content in quite a few old metal objects are iffy. On the positive side my own
children loved the reproduction Victorian toys they were given by family
members – wooden cylinder rattle with a bell inside, jack in the box, wooden
duck on wheels, watching a woodpecker tap its way down a stick(sight and
hearing after the initial thump to make it go!), a metal tin which moo-od,
metal spinning top, wooden blocks( which many families don’t have these days).
Oh and they loved crawling on a relatives rag rugs. Maybe repro is the way to
go.
- I often send out a real nest or a stuffed owl
as a supplement to "owl baby" props, with the expectation that the teacher
will describe and inspire awe!
- My jobshare has taken an old wind up gramophone
home and her toddlers have loved that - the noise and the sight of the
whizzing record. Old dialling telephones are lovely with the whirring
noise - we make up phone time lines with push button phones, wartime field
telephones, huge old mobiles etc. We also have nice Victorian laundry stuff -
carpet beaters, possers, irons, washboards, dolly pegs, tin baths - which can
be played with quite vigorously and open up thinking about different materials
plus use/gesture. Perhaps that is too advanced? We also have a costume
collection and I like to send out shoes - single shoes in different sizes from
different eras and different parts of the world. One of the big
education suppliers sells (hand/foot measurers) so there is some fun to be had
in comparing sizes and thinking about growth. Again perhaps I am in a
nursery class....
- I’ve just completed developing a Liver Birds
nest (baby pod) for pre walkers which has multi sensory elements - Liverpool
Museum.
- One important bit of advice I had from a
designer was that a couple of museums in the past have come a cropper through
developing such things with rubber. Anything that one can take a bite out of
becomes a choking hazard – seems obvious but often forgotten about in the
quest for soft squidigness.
- Someone at MOL told me some people can react to
objects made from copper.
- The Cuming Museum has baskets of
touchy-feely things, but they usually get an object out from the collection,
which the facilitator invites participants to carefully touch while they also
hold it.
-
Stoke museum have handling material for babies but at
this age they have focused on baby toys that link to the displays - so
for example early learning animals to link to natural science displays - and a
lovely soft tea set to link to the pottery displays. They are then health and
safety checked and can be washed!
-
There are also BS standards for minimum sizes of items
that under 36 month-ers can use – you can get those off the Internet. http://www.bsieducation.org/Education/downloads/leaflets/ISC_Toys.pdf
Pedagogy
- Let children handle real objects
- I think the babies need to be beyond putting
everything in their mouths although you will always have some reversion to
this with teething.
- Presumably they will always be examining an object
with their mum/ carer so that the significance and safety aspect will be
shared.
- At Chelmsford Museum there's a mixture of
exploring the displays in the museum and handling, looking carefully, stroking
with one finger, (and riding on sometimes!). They link a nursery rhyme with an
object in the collection and then have a story and craft activity all linked
with the rhyme. They always have puppets, dressing up clothes and
modern equivalents/relicas which they can play and use. The curators are
brilliant at letting us have objects and the children are really
respectful of the real objects after a few sessions.
- At Falmouth they run baby painting sessions,
literally on the gallery floor amongst all the artworks, and they're
amazing.
- Manchester Art Gallery run mother/toddler sessions
too with artists.
- I cannot tell you how many times I've been looking
for somewhere which can offer somewhere cheap to go where I can sit down and
play with my boy in a 'nice' environment which isn't a plastic play
centre or trying to sell me something!
- Challenge your local museum about whether it is
completely inappropriate for objects from the collection to go into babies'
mouths - obviously there is a conservation concern but handling collections
tend to be quite robust.
-
For handling boxes which aren't made up of items
from the collection, but are bought or otherwise acquired then look into the
literature on 'treasure boxes' - a lovely idea from my local Surestart centre.
Boxes of items which tend to be themed by material or appearance (wooden
items, reflective things, fabrics, etc.). Apparently there is lots of evidence
based research about using natural/everyday materials and items which helps to
stimulate babies and children instead of relying on mass produced plastic
items manufactured as 'toys'.
-
Please move away from calling it 'mother' and
baby, in my village a couple of dads are in regular
attendance
-
I think anyone of any age can enjoy handling
pretty much any museum objects, it just needs to be facilitated carefully, so
that of necessary the object – and the person touching - is protected. Best
thing is of course when parents/carers and their children touch together (i’ve
had toddlers touching a taxidermy hedgehog at the Horniman this way, and
neither the toddlers, their grownups, nor the hedgehog came off any the worse
for it).
-
I’ve done object handling with the under 5s at
Redbridge, and Victorian laundry was best – with lots of finger friendly
textures, interesting smells, opportunities to make noise and dress up and
everyone, it seems, loves old fashioned wooden clothes
pegs.
Kim Biddulph
Heritage Education and Interpretation
Consultant
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