This month’s special event theme is La Casa Madrigal! We were inspired to bring this theme to life due to the love that the young community has for the movie. One of our focuses as a museum in the past couple of years is celebrating the diversity in our community. What a beautiful way to introduce children to the beautiful culture of Colombia.
We went about this event by looking at how to represent the community. We reached out to partners around the area and invited anyone who would like to participate to attend. One of the biggest concerns for me is to make sure that we give back to the Latina community instead of stealing their traditions to benefit the museum. Something that is a prevalent issue right now in America. We have partnered with the Latina Center of the Midlands and El Museo de Latino to provide them vouchers so that their constituents can come and enjoy our weekend. If you have not been, both centers are wonderful institutions that live right in our very own South Omaha!
With all the amazing Madrigal gifts, what better way is there to dive into STEAM! We focused on two talents: Bruno’s and Dolores’. Tio Bruno’s gift is seeing into the future…. And while we can’t achieve that through science, we use his hourglass symbol to inspire us to delve into time. We have several fun hourglasses that represent different amounts of time. Children are unable to grasp the concept of time. But giving them a physical mechanism (hourglass) to watch helps make an abstract concept concrete. In fact, many early childhood experts recommend introducing toddlers to hourglasses to help with transitions. We pair this learning opportunity with art through some fun sand art! Our other science activity is inspired by Dolores’ supersonic hearing. We explore sound waves and how sound travels using Foozle phones – a fun toy that expands on the original cans on a string activity.
One of my favorite aspects of this event are the amazing performers who portray the Madrigal sisters. Leticia, Camille, and E are not only bilingual but also professional actors in the area. It was incredibly important to me to have a genuine character experience that was representative and exemplified the culture in Encanto.
Through our diverse community, incredible actors, and programming the Omaha Children’s Museum is very excited to bring such a beloved and educational event to fruition.
