Museum in a Box

This summer Luke signed up for an activity class called “Museum in a Box.”  We really didn’t know what to expect this project to be, but it ended up being a very good learning experience for Luke.

At the first class session, the instructor explained what artifacts are and how they are sorted, identified, and displayed at a museum.  She then gave the kids an assignment for the next session along with a big, empty box.  Luke’s “homework” was to come up with something that he’d like to display in his box-sized museum, and find 7-10 objects that could be used in his display.  The instructions said that the box could be about anything that the child found interesting.

It took us a few days to help Luke come up with a subject for his box, but once we figured that out, he was very enthusiastic and ready to go!  He decided to make his box about musicals–especially about his experience being in Paint Your Wagon last spring.  So, we sorted through some of our memorabilia from the play and picked out some of our favorite pictures of Luke in the performance to use in his box.  I still wasn’t quite sure how all of this would fit into a box museum, though!

At the next session, the teacher showed the kids how to label their items, and Luke came home with all of his items and a blank box.  He said he needed to have it finished by the next session.  I asked him if the teacher had any suggestions about how to  assemble the “museum,” and he said, “not really.  We’re just supposed to do whatever we think looks good.”  Hmmm……

So, we started out by painting his box, and then we started arranging and re-arranging everything in it.  As we started gluing things in, I could begin to see that this little project was going to turn out very, very neat–much better than we had imagined!  By the time we had everything in the box with their labels, Luke was so pleased with how his box turned out.  He could hardly wait to go to the last class session to share his box!

This really was a neat experience for Luke, and he learned a lot about how to make nice displays.  Every experience like this helps with future projects, and, believe me, there will be many, many display-type projects for Luke in the years to come with A Beka Academy!

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