Julie's Journal 7/26/10

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her eleventh post:

July 24, 2010 was one of our busiest days. We had over 670 visitors explore our museum and join us for our first Family Fun Day sponsored by PNC Foundation Grow Up Great Initiative. Our visitors received free admission, planetarium shows, train rides, art activities and much more. We had some wonderful volunteers from PNC Bank, who graciously helped all our guests make their own world or baseball figure. This day was a non-stop excitement filled day. One of the stations was Baseball speed throwing. This station allowed our guests to throw a baseball and have their speed timed. One of our young visitors through the ball at 66 mph. Well Done! In addition we had several drawings for fun things like Tiger’s baseball tickets, Puppet Art Theater tickets and DCM t-shirts and mug. Congratulations to our winners!!! O. Oluwole, M. Smith, and N. Ferreira. We are looking forward to seeing all of our visitors again soon. Join us next month for the “Dog Days of Summer” Aug. 1-31.

Thanks,

Julie

Julie's Journal 5/24/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her ninth post:

Wow! What a wonderful weekend with our visitors at the DCM. We had 164 visitors this past Saturday. We eagerly read the surveys and are trying to incorporate some of the suggestions you made. We are busy improving and expanding the exhibits this week. We can't wait to share the latest changes and updates when we open at the end of June.

The past 2 months have flown by as we prepare to open the Children's Museum. We have worked on so many different things from behind-the-scenes chaos of computers, phones, and security systems, to hiring staff and making sure the building is clean, safe, and inviting. We have also been busy removing artifacts that had been in the cases since last summer, searching the collection to bring out pieces that may bring memories of years ago, reinstalling Silverbolt, moving cases, working with teachers on the lending collection for their multicultural days to adding donated displays and so much more. None of this would be possible without the help of the entire DCM staff and a little help from our friends at the Science Center. They are awesome!

We are working feverishly to finalize the remaining areas of the Children's Museum that were not quite finished at this last open house. We can't wait to show off all of the wonderful artifacts, hands-on activities, new planetarium shows and programs. Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to visit the DCM at our Open Houses this spring. We hope to see all of you this summer.

Julie's Journal 5/4/10

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her eighth post:

Thanks to all our wonderful visitors and loyal followers of our blog. We have been very busy this past week or so rearranging, fixing, and setting up new gallery spaces. We have removed all of the artifacts in the cases in the main gallery and are cleaning and repairing any fixtures etc that need it. We are bringing out of storage some dioramas to place on the main floor which needs some ‘tender loving care’ from our exhibit shop before they will be open for viewing. We will be adding several more pieces soon and hope to have most of the display cases filled in time for our next Open House for May 22.

We have also been working very hard on the latest requests from schools regarding our lending collection. This is very exciting as we get to see the students enjoy the artifacts at their schools. We are looking forward to extending this out to all schools in the area.

We hope to see you soon.

Julie's Journal 4/26/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her seventh post:

Hello all,

A huge thank you to all the visitors that came to the Detroit Children's Museum on April 24. We had a wonderful day with planetarium shows of the Night Sky, seltzer rocket demonstrations, solar system bracelets, exhibit exploration and hands-on fun. It was great to see over 100 visitors at the museum.

This week we are getting ready to make major changes to the exhibits on display. We will be removing some of the current exhibits for ones that haven't been on display for quite a while. We will also be rearranging the current areas to incorporate as much of the floor space for our visitors enjoyment as possible.

We are looking forward to our next Open House on Saturday May 22. Hope to see you there.

Julie Johnson

Julie's Journal 4/19/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her sixth post:

"Hello all. Wow! There are so many changes occurring at the DCM. Silverbolt is back in front of the building and is all spruced up. He looks great. I would like to thank all of our visitors for stopping by on March 21 for our first Open House. We had over 100 people stop by to take a sneak peak. Our next Open House is this weekend Saturday April 24 from 11-3. We will have our planetarium open with a night sky show. We will also have two hands-on activities specifically for space science Seltzer Rockets and Solar Bead Bracelets. Of course our exhibits will be there along with our regular hands-on activities. We are looking forward to sharing this with you. Hope to see you there!

Over the past week or so we have been busy inventorying all of the artifacts and equipment, getting behind the scenes operations up and running and getting all of our programs ready for the summer and fall. This is an exciting time for our staff as we try to incorporate all the ideas we have. If you have any ideas of what you would like to see. Let us know. We'd love to hear them. Thanks for all of your support."

Julie Johnson

Julie's Journal 3/29/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her fifth post:

Another week has flown by and we are in the process of doing inventory on all 100,000 artifacts, furniture, and supplies. My team is awesome and we are 1/3rd of the way complete. Thanks to the extra hands from the DSC presentation staff we are well on our way. We also started our planetarium sky projector today. The moon and moon phases were great. The stars moved and we even have a laser pointer working. Today was a GOOD day! We have received several calls from teachers requesting lending collection items to be used in their classrooms. We are gathering the materials and are looking forward to working with all of them.

As a special note: we are taking a high resolution photo of our Japanese doll "Miss Akita" for a photography show in Ohio. We are very excited that she will be highlighted with many other dolls from around the world.

Talk with all of you soon.

Julie

Julie's Journal 3/23/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her fourth post:

Hello everyone! We had a fantastic turn out at our first Open House on March 21 at the Children’s Museum. We have received some wonderful feedback and enjoyed meeting all of you. We are busy expanding, moving and changing our exhibits so that there will be more to see and do at the DCM. Our next Open House is schedule on April 24 for Astronomy Day! We will have our planetarium showing “Spring Skies” along with Seltzer Rockets, solar bead bracelets and more. Please join us for a fun-filled day.

Julie's Journal 3/11/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her third post:

Greetings! I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful spring weather preview. All of my team is hard at work getting the Children’s Museum programming, open houses and Grand Opening plans finalized. I have been over there checking things out and trying to figure out what needs to be done before our first open house. There is furniture to be moved, cases to be cleaned, exhibits to be up-dated and much more. Our theme for this first open house is “Welcome Back”. You will get to see some of the old favorites like “Champ” the Tiger, the puppets and play at the hands-on tables. We are eager to meet all of you next week on March 21 at our first open house from 11am-3pm. This will be the first time the Children’s Museum will be open to the public since last August. I hope to see you there.

Julie's Journal 2/22/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here is her second post:

Welcome!

This past week has been very exciting. I have been planning our 3 open houses for the the Detroit Children's Museum and our Grand Opening. I have several groups signed up for entertainment for the Grand Opening in June and we are on our way getting organized for our summer programs for families and children. I am in the process of recruiting volunteers for the DCM. If you are interested in volunteering and are over the age of 16 please go to the Detroit Science Center website and check out our volunteer programs.

Our Open Houses will be March 21, April 24, and May 22 from 11am-3pm. You will receive free admission to the Children's Museum and be able to explore our exhibits, speak to staff about changes, and see our plans for our new exhibits. We are looking forward to seeing you this spring.

BTW-Some of you have asked if "Silverbolt" the horse is still at DCM. Yes, he will be back once we open.

Have a great week everyone.

Julie's Journal 2/11/2010

Julie Johnson is the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum under its new association with the Detroit Science Center. Julie will be blogging her thoughts as she works toward the reopening of this Detroit institution! Here's her first entry:

Hello all,
It is with great pleasure that I am writing to you about re-opening the Detroit Children's Museum. I am Julie Johnson, the new Director of the Detroit Children's Museum. For that last few weeks I have been working with a wonderful team at DPS as we complete the process of transitioning the Children's Museum building from DPS to the Detroit Science Center.

I was in the building yesterday eager to get started on this journey. I have many plans and hopes for the building, the exhibits and most of all the students and their families of Detroit. There are so many wonderful artifacts, hands-on activities and programs that we are preparing for this summer. Of course, there are many wonderful favorites that you will still be able to experience including the planetarium and many of the favorite exhibits and hands-on activities. I can't wait to share them with you in up-coming blog entries.

We will be holding 3 open house days in the coming months with the first one in March. I hope that some of you will stop by and see where we are and our plans for the future. We are scheduling our Grand Re-opening for this summer. We are making plans for a huge celebration with many local artists and groups. I hope to see you there. Please check the Detroit Science Center website and this blog for more details as we progress.