Two-year-olds from the Belfast Sure Start cohort act as 'museum experts' and lead visitors through hands-on, age-appropriate science activities.
Kids in Museums: Takeover Day comes to the Ulster Museum on Friday 20 November, and it's exactly what the name suggests. For one hour, the museum hands over the reins to a group of two-year-olds from the Belfast Sure Start cohort, who'll be acting as 'museum experts' and leading visitors through the gallery.
The whole thing is run by Kids in Museums, an award-winning charity that works to make museums more open and welcoming to children, young people and families. The idea here is to flip the usual script: instead of the adults showing the toddlers around, the two-year-olds take the lead for the hour, guiding visitors through a series of hands-on, age-appropriate scientific activities. There's observing animals through microscopes, hunting for mini-beasts in a replica tree, searching for toy animals in a sand box, and touching real animals on display. It's a session built around doing rather than just looking, and it includes object handling too.
The museum frames the day as a demonstration to visitors that museums are for everyone, and having a group of toddlers lead the way makes that point pretty clearly. It's a chance to see the galleries from a very different perspective, with the youngest visitors in the building taking charge of the experience.
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It all happens in the Discover Nature gallery at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, from 10:00 to 11:00 on Friday 20 November.
