It’s no secret that Bluey is the biggest cartoon in our culture. From the cute kids, the parenting advice, the life lessons, and the beautiful animation, it has stolen the hearts of people around the world. But what makes Bluey so similar to the Omaha Children’s Museum? The Imaginative Play!
The Omaha Children’s Museum is centered on the educational value of pretend play. It is even in our mission “to engage the imagination and create excitement about learning”. Every exhibit in our museum caters to that mission. While it is easy to take a reprieve from parenting and let your child run around on their own (independent pretend play comes with its own set of benefits), part of what makes us love Bandit (Bluey’s dad) so much is how active he is in his children’s imaginative play!
For Bluey weekend, I encourage families to play with their children and see firsthand what education the children are receiving. Imaginative play helps promote language skills, empathy, self-confidence, and cooperation! You will also find many ways to incorporate teaching lessons into the play, just as Bandit does in Bluey! Now, we acknowledge that this can be a bit of a daunting task… not to fear! The Omaha Children’s Museum has provided an easy guide to facilitate play between both the adults and the kids! In each area, there are floor/wall graphics that include prompts to initiate play. Each one of these prompts is related to a specific area in the exhibit and is inspired by an episode of Bluey! We have even included the season and episode number on the prompts, so if you need to have a quick refresh, you can watch that episode! Thank goodness, the episodes are only 8 minutes long! Make sure to seek out these prompts to have a truly Bluey-like experience.
