Halloween is Almost Here!

Halloween is an especially anticipated event at the museum because... well, let's be honest- who doesn't like dressing up in a costume or eating delicious treats?? We certainly do! (picture source: ursispaltenstein.ch)

This year the museum is dedicated to providing Halloween fun in a welcoming, safe environment with activities appropriate for a range of ages. We will start with an event just for the preschoolers, our Think and Play Series! On Friday, October 30th at 9:30 am, Ashley will be throwing a Spooktastic Celebration! This is a very special day for Think and Play, and we will be celebrating Halloween with silly music, a read-aloud of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown by Charles Schulz, and creating and devouring some spooky treats. Wear a costume to take part in our Halloween parade around the museum! This program runs approximately 45 minutes to an hour. Admission to the program is $6.00 per family and includes admission to the museum (members are free). Anyone arriving after 10:00 am is subject to regular museum admission prices. (picture source: blogs.pioneerlocal.com)

On Halloween Day, the museum is participating in the "Spooktacular," set in Holyoke Heritage State Park. The event was recently featured in The Republican:

'Spooktacular' Set at Carousel
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
HOLYOKE - Looking for a "spooktacular" time this Halloween?
Check out the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round where the horses will be in costume and rides will be half-price if you, too, come in costume. Creator of the Canal Creature Crawl, Nancy Howard Smith and area artists and designers, including mask makers Angel Sanchez Ortiz, Jenny Sumi, Marjorie Latham, Karen Tozzi Colberg, Malini Sinha and Lou's Upcycles, have come together to mask the steeds for Halloween.
The merry-go-round's events - all aimed at families - will be at three locations. There will be a costume parade at 1 p.m. at the carousel. A haunted house tour will be offered at the Holyoke Heritage State Park visitors' center, and storyteller Tom McCabe will offer a program at the Children's Museum. There will be a limited amount of crafts and refreshments as well as candy give-a-ways, all offered free. There will be free admission to the children's museum after 3 p.m.
The state park is located on 221 Appleton St., bordered by Dwight Street. Parking is free, and all venues are accessible to accommodate special needs. For more information, contact the Children's Museum at (413) 536-7048, the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round at (413) 538-9838, Heritage State Park at (413) 534-1723 or the Volleyball Hall of Fame at (413) 536-0926. Submitted by the Holyoke Merry-Go-Round. (article source: masslive.com, picture source: holyokemerrygoround.org)

Please remember to be safe on Halloween night! Click here for some great trick-or-treating tips from The Friday Zone.

Our raffle for staff member Brenda Parent is currently underway. We have begun selling tickets, but we want to get the word out to as many people as possible! Please tell your friends. Tickets are available at our front desk: 1 for $1.oo or 6 for $5.00. (picture source: thetrotblog.wordpress.com)

Here is a list of all the items being raffled off (for a more detailed description of each item, ask at the front desk or call 413-536-7048):

• Memberships to the Children's Museum at Holyoke
• Winter-Themed Handmade Floor Mat
• Framed Photograph of City Hall taken by Norm Boulanger
• Framed Photograph of Fall Foliage by Holyoke Canal by Nona Hatay
• Weekend Entertainment Package (gift certificates to the Hofbrauhaus, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the New England Air Museum)
• Variety of Gift Baskets (Learn-to-Crochet basket, Mary Kay basket, Family Night at Home basket, Mommy's Time Out basket, and Christmas basket)

The final drawing will take place on Novemeber 14th at our museum bake sale (also to benefit Brenda). Please buy raffle tickets and help us to help this amazing woman!!

Finally, the Children's Museum will be open on Wednesday, November 11th (Veteran's Day). Come and play with us on your day off!

Our raffle to raise money for Brenda Parent, our Administrative Manager recovering from surgery, will begin this coming Wednesday, October 21st. A variety of items will be available, including memberships to the Children's Museum, a beautiful winter floor mat made and donated by a museum member, and a handful of fun gift baskets (Christmas, wine, Mary Kay products, etc.) all donated by staff, board members, and members. A full description of each item, as well as tickets for the raffle, will be available at the front desk starting Wednesday the 21st. The final drawing will take place on Saturday, November 14th during our Children's Museum bake sale (also to benefit Brenda). Please, help us raise money for this amazing woman and her family! (picture source: easygiftbasketideas.com)

Our final installment in our Colors! Series of Think and Play for Preschoolers is this Friday, October 23rd. Ashley has been thinking up new animal riddles, finding fun songs to sing, and practicing her animal yoga to fill her program with awesome activities just for our preschool age visitors. Please join us this week to learn about rainbows and all of their beautiful colors. Enjoy Eric Carle's Let's Paint a Rainbow, and explore idenitifying, sorting, and mixing colors while we make our own collage rainbows to bring home! The program begins at 9:30 am, and don't be late because it's only $6.00 for the whole family (free for members)! Anyone arriving after 10:00 am will be subject to regular museum admission prices. (picture source: imvu.com)

Finally, don't forget about the Discover Holyoke event happening throughout the city this coming Saturday, October 24th. We'll be here at the museum welcoming any and all participating guests, and we can't wait to see you!

Exciting Events!

This month is jam-packed with fun events in Holyoke, and the Children's Museum is participating in lots of them! One particularly important event is Discover Holyoke, hosted by PassportHolyoke. PassportHolyoke was described as "several organizations... joining forces to promote their cultural, recreational, and educational events together... to increase awareness and attract more people [for the city of Holyoke]" in a recent article from the Republican. (picture source: passportholyoke.org)

PassportHolyoke's website details the event as follows: Holyoke will offer a wide assortment of exciting events and special offers throughout the city, sponsored by PassportHolyoke Organizations. Wrist bracelets will be handed out at the Event Kick-off at 10a.m. at Wistariahurst Museum and can be purchased throughout the day. Holyoke offers an attractive balance of urban bustle and vibrant natural landscapes. Refresh yourself in the area’s historical richness, experience the beauty of the canals, explore a renovated mill building, have fun in the outdoors, visit historical sites. Take advantage of the abundant cultural, recreational and educational venues. Enjoy museums, take in the Volleyball Hall of Fame, give the kids a ride on the historic Merry-Go-Round and play at the Children’s Museum and so much more. Wistariahurst Museum will be open for historic house and garden tours from 12 noon to 4 p.m.
When:
Saturday October 24, 2009 Event Kick-off starts at 10:00 a.m.
Where:
Wistariahurst Museum
Price:
Participating visitors pay $1 to enjoy ongoing events throughout the city - shuttle transportation is included.

Also, don't forget about Spooktacular! This event is always an amazing time, and we can't wait to see everyone on Halloween Day in their spooky, silly, and creative costumes! All the fun details are in last week's blog post, which can be found at this link. (picture source: spookynite.com)

As previously posted, our administrative manager, Brenda Parent, has been absent from the museum for very serious medical complications. Just to update any and all concerned parties, she is recovering steadily at her home. We hear from her every few days, and we are excited to report her good progress. We wish her love and continued good recovery!! Stay tuned for more details about our raffle to raise money for Brenda.

Finally, our Think and Play Series for preschoolers continues to grow each week! We love meeting more and more members and nonmembers with fabulous, curious kiddos. The details are the same for this week: Friday, October 16th at 9:30 am; $6.00 per family (free for members); and the theme for the month of October is COLORS! Exciting activities for this week include making your own instrument to play in our COLORS! band, animal yoga, and a "creating new colors" workshop that includes a fun and messy paint mixing activity. Hope to see you all there! (picture source: picturebookart.org)

And We're Open!

This week has been a hectic and beautiful re-opening, and we've been so glad to see all of the lovely faces that have been missing from the museum for the past month or so! The museum is clean, complete, and ready for your enjoyment. Fresh paint, new carpet, and a new layout! In the next few weeks, we will be working to get more signage back on the walls, the Fetch!Lab up and running, making the apartment a more functional space, the new art room decorated, and our court house furnished ::phew!:: So look forward to even more updates!

In the meantime, there are a few events and issues we all want to bring up... In all of the chaos, we've been down a staff member. With heavy hearts we had to wish Brenda Parent, our administrative manager, our prayers as she went under serious surgery last week. It was particularly frightening for Brenda and her family as she is already a cancer survivor and the diagnosis was undetermined. We are happy to say that, to date, Brenda is cancer free. Brenda has worked at the Children's Museum for about 9 years, so many of you may have seen her around. She is a Holyoke native and has given much back to the community. Brenda and her family have given years of service to the museum, not only as employees, but as volunteers as well. We're asking for any donation you can give to help support them in their time of need. Brenda will be out for about 4-6 weeks or possibly longer in order to fully recover. If you would like to send a check (made out to the Children's Museum at Holyoke), please send it to:

Attention: Parent Fund

Children's Museum at Holyoke

444 Dwight StreetHolyoke, MA 01040

Or you can participate in our special raffle. Prizes include a basket of Mary Kay items and a Family Plus membership (great for holiday gift giving!) All proceeds will go to the Parent Fund. Tickets are $1.00 each or 3 for $2.00, available at our front desk. Thank you!!

One of the museum's favorite events is coming up... Holyoke's Parks and Recreation Department's HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR! Saturday, October 31, 2009 1:00 PM - 4:00 pm join us at Holyoke's Heritage State Park for the annual HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR! Halloween activities and crafts for children ages 2 - 10 years old will be offered. Activities include: a costume parade starting the day at 1:00 PM, ride the Not-So-Scary-Go-Round, a haunted house at the Visitor's Center, nationally known story teller Tom McCabe at the Children's Museum as well as crafts and more family fun. For more information, please call (413) 322-5620. (picture source: frugallawstudent.com)

Also on everyone's minds is the 2009 H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu). As a place where lots of people and children congregate, the museum is particularly concerned. And so we are reading up on the virus and other seasonal viruses so that we can be as educated and informed as possible on how to keep all of you (and ourselves) flu free! The H1N1 virus is thought to spread in the same way that other influenzas spread: person to person via coughing sneezing, touching things, etc. The virus can only live on a surface for 2-8 hours, and so we are working to keep all of our surfaces and toys as clean as possible. We are also considering installing some bins around the museum that would have a sign reading something to the effect of "if you have seen a child with a toy in his or her mouth, please put it in here." This would be a measure to decrease the likelihood of your child coming across a toy that has been in someone elses mouth. Finally, we have a bottle of hand sanitizer at the front desk, please use it in addition to washing your hands thoroughly in the bathrooms whenever possible- we sure do! (picture source: sikunews.com, information source: http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/qa.htm)

Finally, please don't forget about our Think and Play Fridays for the preschoolers! Ashley had such an amazing time with the group that showed up last week, and she's super excited to see everyone again this Friday. The program begins at 9:30 am (approx. 45 minutes to 1 hour run time), and don't be late because it's only $6.00 per family (free for members)! Anyone arriving after 10:00 am will pay regular admission prices. Be ready for songs, stories, food, and arts and crafts!