WOW – the summer of 2019 sure flew by! Aren’t you glad Explorium was open and air-conditioned?? We are too! Here is a look at what our first summer in our brick-and-mortar location looked like.
Field trips:
With school out, childcare providers were very busy looking for opportunities to keep their charges engaged and occupied this summer. Explorium hosted numerous field trips this summer with more than 500 children and their caregivers! They learned about flight, space, density, and more during their visits.
Camps:
We hosted SIX camps this summer! And all of them were full. We started off with our annual gardening camp off site, and followed that up with Dino Camp, Camp Creative, STEAM Camp, Robotics Camp, and Coding Camp. These camps provided not only a great revenue stream for us over the summer but also and incredible educational opportunity for a few of our community members who attended on scholarship thanks to the Rotary Club of Denton South. We are thankful for this partnership. We are also SO thankful to have received a grant from CoServ to help cover the cost of our Thymio and Micro:bit camps!
Parties:
Our classroom/party room was booked solid all summer, with more than 600 party-goers. Some of these parties included dinosaur digs, human-sized bubbles, and lots of slime.
Visitors:
While we now have more than 500 member families, our visitor count was through the roof! From memorial day through July 31 we saw 3,000+ non-member visitors!
New Members:
Since school ended in May, we have had more than 50 new families purchase Explorium memberships!
New partnerships:
We are pleased to provide a free membership that is shared by families who utilize services from the Serve Denton partner agencies like Tarrant County MHMR/ECI and Big Brothers Big Sisters. Some of these families are having their play therapy sessions at Explorium, while others are using Explorium as an escape from trauma. We are thankful for this wonderful partnership and have more than 100 families signed up.
Learning:
Here is what some of our campers learned this summer.
[My child is] more interested in science now.
[My child] cannot stop sewing!
“Very impressed and thankful for responsible, experienced staff for the camp.”
[My child is] teaching me how to code!”
Feedback:
Here is what some of our visitors have had to say this summer:
“The elements of science, technology and just plain fun keep children engaged and excited. I especially love that this is a place for parents to play and interact WITH their children.”
“Explorium is everything you want in a local, indoor, kids play museum and then some.”
“My children were inspired to come home and make their own scarf blower!” (after playing with our wind lab)
“We visit weekly and so glad to have the Explorium near us!”
“I feel like it brings a lot of value to our community!! “
“Explorium is one of the best things to ever happen to Denton.”
Thanks for reading our latest blog post!
We are excited for school to start and new families to start visiting the museum!