“Kids in the Museum”

Awesome best describes how students, teachers, and volunteers feel about “Kids in the Museum!” Sponsored by TD Banknorth, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and an anonymous funder, the program utilizes the Museum’s collection to meet MA state educational guidelines for the 5^th grade by focusing on simple machines, science, technology, and art. 

Rob Kahelin, educational consultant for the Osterville Historical Society, designed the enrichment program that reached 450 Barnstable County students from the Horace Mann Charter School in the fall of 2006. 

Students learned how pulley systems were used in boat building, how a criterion music box utilizes a metal “record” disc with pierced holes to produce musical sounds from vibrations, that soap was made from wood ash and fat, and how herbs were used in colonial homes for cooking and medicinal purposes. 

Teachers received individual workbooks with lesson plans and activities to augment the program, something they really appreciated.  The school’s art teacher created a ten-unit lesson plan as an in school follow up on what the children experienced at the museum. 

Lessons include discussing Winslow Homer’s catboat picture, making fans, and writing their names using signal flags.  Makes you want to go back to school!  

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