Skin deep: The Children’s Museum Mobile Museum offers interactive programs through August
- Tracey Weiss
- Aug 1
- 3 min read
Written by Tracey Weiss
Photography by Tracey Weiss
Who has more bones, a human baby or a snake?
The answer is the snake; depending on their size, a snake can have up to 1800 bones. Babies have between 270-300 bones.
The question is part of a fun exercise, illustrated on a magnetic board with colorful cutouts of babies, crabs, fish, and other beings. It’s one piece of “Your Skin and What’s Within,” a new summer program for children.
Presented by the TCM Mobile Museum in conjunction with Hartford Public Library, the sessions continue through August at Hartford public library branches. It’s free to participate but bring the kids early; there is a 25-child maximum per program.
Your Skin and What’s Within is broken into three different sessions—organs, bones, and body systems—and uses hands-on activities and fun experiments to teach about them, according to TCM Education Coordinator Savanna Arcuri. She and TCM Seasonal Educator Rachel Blanchard created the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) based programs to Hartford children.
“Learning about your skin and muscle and melanin is important. It’s this important part that protects the skin,” Arcuri said.
For the bones segment, “we learn about why it’s important to take care of our bones.”
The activities promote learning and fun. Trace your hand or use the sample Q-tip creations glued to paper to make your own. Look at human and animal X-rays on newly purchased light tables to determine what they are. “I’m so excited for them to use these tables,” Arcuri said.
Another activity? Make play people with air dry clay to take home and use sticks to create their “bones.”
Educators bring live animals such as Bobby the Turtle, Abbott the Snake, and some friendly insects, to conclude the program. They’re always a hit with the children.
“It’s something to keep their brains active during the summer,” Arcuri said of the program. “Enrichment to keep them thinking and learning and retaining things. And they have fun doing stem-based activities.”
They’re also teaching patience and perseverance, she added. “If they make a mistake, they’ll continue to try—it’s important to keep trying. With our programming, it’s about teamwork,” Arcuri said.
For their current program, they’ve brought along their beloved office mascot, Bobalina, a life-sized skeleton.
This prompted Ethan, a young participant of the program being held in July at the Dwight Branch in Parkville, to ask, pointing to the rib cage to ask, “why do we have such weird bones?”
“Because we have a lot of stuff in between them,” Arcuri answered. This prompted a discussion about muscle and tissue.
Your Skin and What’s Within is one of the last segments of the overall program, which has been running since 2022, thanks to a $1.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. It was given to the Center for STEAM Advancement Collaborative. The Collaborative includes the Hartford Parent University, the Hartford Youth Scholars, the YMCA of Greater Hartford, the Legacy Foundation of Hartford, and The Children’s Museum with organizational oversight by the City of Hartford Treasurer’s Office.
“Over the four years we rotated what we offered for schools. We’ve done makerspace, robotics, arts & crafts and engineering with this grant, got to come and craft,” said Hannah Allison, TCM’s Marketing and Communications Manager.
All programs have been free for the children in Hartford and New Britain and include lunch following the program.
The Children’s Museum was founded in 1927, and according to their website, is “a non-profit educational institution dedicated to sparking curiosity and creativity among children and their caregivers. Through hands-on STEAM, health, nature, and environmental programs, we foster life-long learning and wonder.”
The TCM group also includes the Children’s Museum Preschool, Roaring Brook Nature Center, Wildlife Sanctuary. Additionally, it offers educational programs and interactive museum exhibits. WHL
Contact the Children’s Museum Group at www.thechildrensmuseumct.org.