In previous years we had been using the loans boxes from Hartlepool Art Gallery to support with our toys topic. The Art Gallery have always been accommodating with this. This year we were fortunate enough to be able to visit the art gallery as part of our topic. It was incredible that the children were able to get that hands on experience which really brought their learning to life. The trip also helped the children truly understand what happens in a museum and extend their thinking from just “old things being shown” but now they understand all the work that goes on to show these things off and what needs to be done to maintain a museum. For many children this has broadened their knowledge skills and experiences and embedded cultural capital into their learning. 
Making a Museum of Old Things at Hart Primary School
Why create a play museum in your classroom?
We visited Hart Primary school to see their play museum and to find out more from the EYFS teacher.
The online resources were great at helping the children understand the topic prior to their visit and it allowed our nursery to be immersed in the learning as well. They loved the virtual tour of the museum. As the teacher I found the step by step approach really easy to follow and useful when planning out this unit of work with the children.
In the art gallery the children completed a carousel of activities. All the activities were introduced to the class and the children were told that they would be running the museum for the day. As well as a café, children were invited to choose pictures for their gallery and sell admission tickets, which some “real” visitors were keen to participate in too! The class also created their own artwork, cleaned up the gallery, took part in security roles checking that all the exhibits were in place and not missing. They even had opportunities to understand the importance of the care of collections, recognising that old objects are fragile and need to be looked after carefully by wrapping them in bubble wrap and tissue paper.
In the space I set up the till to sell tickets. We made some class tickets for the children to use. We also set up a café using play food. We gave the children notepads to take orders. The main museum was made up of an exhibition area and a storage area. The exhibition shelves were set up so the children could choose the objects to display. The museums stores consisted of a large box containing the objects wrapped in tissue paper. Children were encouraged to choose items for display and then put other items away for another time. Children were encouraged to choose the objects to display – the discussions of why they wanted to display certain things and explaining the toys and how they worked in the past were great and brought out fabulous vocabulary There was also a gallery of the objects which the children had created. . Children were invited to choose their roles and there were lanyards with various roles available for the children to choose from.
The children loved the responsibility of choosing their own objects to display in the museum. They were interested in looking to see what objects others chose and recognised that everyone liked to choose different objects.
Children developed their oracy skills, they were able to compare old and new toys. They recognised the similarities and differences and described them. One boy described the different materials between an old cycle helmet and an old cycle helmet. He was able to identify that a harder material would be better than the softer leather helmet from the old days.
Children enjoyed wrapping the objects up from the collections identifying larger and smaller squares of bubble wrap for larger and smaller objects.
Children understood the importance of ensuring the museum is kept clean and tidy with one child saying to another “No one will come to our museum if there is rubbish on the floor, we need the cleaners to tidy that up!”
When creating their artwork for the art display the children loved discussing their art talking about the colours, the sizing and the type of toy it was. They were amazing at talking about how to use the toys and how they were not electrical because “they didn’t have electric and batteries in the olden days.”
There is nothing I would change about this experience, the communication from start to finish was amazing, the resources were so vast and useful to the children and the online resources were explained well.
The trip to the art gallery was amazing and the carousel was such a fabulous way to carry it out for our little ones who need to be keeping busy. The resources were so insightful and suitable for the children.
I would recommend doing it and making sure all the different roles are available for the children to have a go at. Even our quietest children were brought out of their shells and really immersed themselves in the different roles and came out with some fantastic discussion points.
