Let’s Go Huskies! Let’s Go Interns!

Fall is the time when students of all ages head back to school. It is also the time of year when the CHS Education Department welcomes two new interns through a partnership program with the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. The interns from the program (this is our fifth year!) have earned their undergraduate degrees, completed their student-teaching requirements, and are 5th year students pursuing their Master Degree in Education.

Back to School and History Day!

For most students and teachers in Connecticut, the school year has already started, but for museum educators at the CHS, our crunch time is the end of August and first few weeks of September. During this time we are preparing for one of our busiest times of the year—October – December, when we have school programs happening each day both at CHS and in classrooms across the state. It’s an exciting time of year!

CHS Kids’ Choice Awards

Summer programs bring a lot of activity to CHS! By the end of August, we will have offered fourteen Story &Crafts at the Museum programs for toddlers and their caregivers. This has given me a lot of time to delve into the minds of 2, 3, and 4 year-old museum visitors. In an unofficial poll, I have created a list of the top 5 stops that are unavoidable if you and your little one(s) come to CHS for a visit.

They Say It’s Your Birthday…

Since today is my birthday (34—woot woot!) it seemed like a great time to think about what we have at the CHS relating to birthdays…

The challenge with birthdays is that what I consider the best parts (hello—the cake and the party) don’t leave a lot behind besides some crumbs and maybe a couple of photographs. But then I thought about all of the wonderful, funny, and sometimes hand-made birthday cards I’ve given and received over the years. This led me to one of my favorite parts of the CHS collection—EPHEMERA! Here are some birthday card gems from the CHS collection.

I love this WWII era card:

CHS Ephemera Collection, c. 1940s

A Big Thank You!

Thanks! I cannot say this word enough to the handful of high-school and college volunteers that dutifully come in at least one Saturday of every month, giving up valuable weekend mornings that could be spent working additional hours at a paying job, hanging out with friends, or sleeping. Instead, my volunteers can be found engaging in conversations about history with visitors from ages 2 – 102, cleaning up spilled glitter from an arts and craft project, or sitting down in our reproduction colonial kitchen, wearing an apron and pretending to enjoy the onion and apple soup that is being prepared for them by one of our young visitors.

A CHS Commuter

As I write this blog entry, two middle school classes are walking past my office. This is the third program that educators have done today—three different programs for students from three different schools. End of the year field-trip time keeps the CHS educators busy!

It is during this time of year that I love my commute to and from work—I can roll the windows down, turn up the radio, and clear my mind. Sometimes. In order to get to this state of mind, I need to first tune out the honking of horns and forget about the bumper-to-bumper traffic that will be my fate for the next 20 miles.

What I wish my commute looked like!

Three Connecticut Women and a Group of Girl Scouts

A typical day in the Education Department at CHS begins with educators teaching classes of students, both on-site and off-site, until midday. Then, we spend hours prepping materials for upcoming programs, (think—sorting through thousands of colorful beads for Native American bear claw necklaces, cutting out hundreds of pieces of paper—some sticky—for colonial hornbooks, and peeling off the last remnants of toilet paper from its rolls so that the rolls can be turned into binoculars or holiday poppers!), creating lesson plans, holding teacher workshops, and doing countless other tasks.