Winter - Academy Art Museum

H
IGHLIGHTS
Museum's Young Explorer,s Program
featured in the Smithsonian's Early
Enrichment Center's newsletter
This fall the Museum's Young Explorers program was
chosen by the Smithsonian's Early Enrichment Center to be
featured in their first newsletter. The article appears below:
Academy Art Museums' Young Explorers
Continues to Grow
Seven years ago, the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD, was
looking for a solution. Its KinderMusic program was fully subscribed,
serving infants, toddlers and their moms. But all too
soon—by age two and a half--the little ones were ready to graduate.
The parents, however, loved the Museum environment and didn’t
want to move on.
As an interim solution, the Museum offered an in-house program
for two to four-year-olds that ran one day a week. Meanwhile,
head teacher Melanie Young surveyed museum-based curricula and
found SEEC’s “Museum Magic,” with its emphasis on creativity and
hands-on experiential learning, to be the best by far!
In the fall of 2008, the Academy Art Museum purchased licensed
curriculum from SEEC for what became the Young Explorers
program. That first year, 24 students participated in a two-dayper-week
program. Now in its fourth year, the program offers
a variety of options—including both two and four-day
schedules. Enrollment has almost doubled.
Parents, Kevin and Zana Gately of Easton may
offer clues as to why. Their daughter, Sophia,
enrolled in the program last year when she
was two. According to her parents,
Sofia has blossomed in Young Explorers.
Kevin Gately comments, “As an
only child, she was fairly shy. This
program has helped her come out
of her shell.” He adds, “Being in a
museum, the program provides more of a
school environment. Sophia showed an interest
in art, so we chose this program because
it offered enrichment at an early age. Her
exposure to famous artists and to music just
further expands her experience.”
Teacher Melanie Young appreciates
both the strong framework SEEC
provides and the opportunity to
individualize her lesson plans.
16
Young Explorers
OPEN HOUSE
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
5:30-6:30pm
Registrations for the 2012-2013
term wil be accepted.
Each day the program utilizes the exhibits, collections and
resources of the Academy Art Museum to encourage exploration
and discovery. In the classroom, these experiences
are extended as students learn about shapes, letters, colors,
and numbers through such diverse themes as dinosaurs,
outer space, and architecture.
Melanie finds it helpful to distribute a weekly newsletter
that keeps parents abreast of what’s happening in the
program. The feedback she receives has been a real treat.
One parent, for example, reported that her threeyear-old
led her on a tour of their home—not to
point out the color blue, but to assemble
objects that related to
Picasso’s blue period.
Now that’s enrichment!
For additional
information about the
Academy Art Museum’s
Young Explorers Program,
contact Melanie Young at
410-822-2787.