Everett’s Imagine Children’s Museum is the place to be beginning today for a full week of family-friendly educational activities.
Today through Thursday, kids and can make ocean-themed mobiles, build bridges for Matchbox cars, listen to a story in the library area next to the museum’s treehouse and make tulip handprints in honor of spring.
These activities, part of Imagine’s Art Rocks, i-Engineers and Tuesday Tales programs, are free with admission and are designed to show children learning can be fun.
“Our motto is, ‘Where fun begins and learning never ends,’ and all of these items fall into that category,” said Imagine’s creative arts manager Raniere, who goes only by one name.
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today, it’s all about the ocean in conjunction with the 29th National Week of the Ocean, Sunday through April 12. The museum’s art space will feature an Art Rocks session dedicated to decorating pictures of ocean inhabitants such as turtles, dolphins, whales and many kinds of fish. Young artists can use glitter markers and rainbow yarn for their creations.
Every project is basic, Raniere explained, so that all ages can participate.
“Basically,” she explained, “if you sit at a chair in the Art Studio, you’re going to make art; and this includes parents, because grown-ups need a break too.”
One of the museum’s more science-geared monthly programs, called “i-Engineers,” introduces youngsters to the basics of engineering through various building projects. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, children will learn about the parts that make up real bridges, and then will choose between paper, cardboard and lasagna noodles to build their own bridges. Staff members say the next challenge is for each participant to see whether his or her design will allow a Matchbox VW Bug to cross it safely. The engineers whose cars make it across get to take them home.
May’s i-Engineer topic will be skyscrapers, and June’s is tunnels.
Tuesday Tales, another monthly program, features readings of children’s books, followed by art studio sessions for making crafts related to each story. Tuesday’s story, “Geez Louise” by Susan Middleton Elya, involves a stinkbug who wants to make friends but encounters a bully in the process. After hearing the story, guests will be ushered into PJ’s Place, the library area next to the museum’s treehouse, where Imagine’s rat character, PJ, will greet them. Each visitor who works on an art project Tuesday will make a bug headband with all sorts of fun, wobbly attachments. Tuesday Tales lasts from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
For Thursday’s Art Rocks session, to celebrate spring and to honor some very important community members, the museum staff decided on a “Handful of Tulips” theme. Any time from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., children can create colorful tulips using their handprints. This also is a community service project, as members of Everett Elks Lodge No. 479 will deliver the finished handprints to residents at the Veteran’s Hospital in Seattle.
“This is the second community outreach-type project Imagine visitors have participated in; the first was cut-out hearts for Valentine’s Day,” Raniere said. “I love teaching children to give back, and this is a great venue to do that.”
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