Des Moines Children’s Museum has a very exciting weekend coming up! We’ll be appearing at 3 events around the metro, and introducing two brand new traveling exhibits! Here’s the schedule:
- From 10-noon on Saturday, September 23rd at the Grimes Public Library, we will be having our New Exhibit Debut for “Every Child Is An Artist”
- Also on Saturday the 23rd, we’ll be bringing some children’s activities to the 2nd Annual Drive Down Memory Lane Car Show, benefitting the Alzheimer’s Association.
- On Sunday the 24th from 1-4pm at Johnston Maker Day, we’ll be introducing our 2nd new exhibit “Amazing Blanket Forts”
Amazing Blanket Forts is all about, you guessed it, blanket forts! We bring the materials, you bring the creativity, and make yourself an amazing blanket fort. We have small furniture with convenient knobs attached, lots of sheets with loops added to the edges, and a big Antsy Pants fort building kit.
Every Child Is An Artist is a variety of artistic activities to develop an early love of art. Little sculptors can make their own unique creations out of our homemade play-doh, or add faces to our 2 plastic model heads. The fashion section has another model head, a little stuffed puppy, and a large assortment of colorful scarves to dress them up. We have a create your own still life station with a variety of props available. My favorite part of the exhibit is our Sensory Rainbow! It’s a variety of sensory activities, all in beautiful rainbow colors. We have several different kinds of sensory bottles, colorful floor tiles for hopping, sensory gel pads, rainbow hand kites, rainbow buckets with color-matching baby toys, and a set of puffs, cups, and big tweezers for little ones working on their fine-motor control.
Want to get involved? Email us at dsmchildren@gmail.com! Here are a few ways you can help right away:
- We want to expand Amazing Blanket Forts! If you have wooden furniture you’d like to get rid of, especially chairs, let us know. We’ll come pick it up.
- Volunteer! We’re partnering with the Iowa Events Center this fall. Volunteers will work a 5ish hour shift selling concessions at an event, and Des Moines Children’s Museum will receive $60-$100 plus tips per volunteer.
- Donate! As an all-volunteer nonprofit organization, all donations go toward continuing and improving our traveling exhibits, and working toward our long term goal of opening a local children’s museum. Our newest short term goal is to find a temporary home for our traveling exhibits where we can have some regular hours. Donations now will help us find a place and get it ready for visitors!
