Deadline for applications is Friday, August 4 Join us at the 5th annual Dover Mini Maker Faire, an all ages celebration of creativity and innovation. The Faire takes place in and around the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire in downtown Dover, NH on Saturday, August 26 from 10am-4pm. Whether you are an engineer, a scientist, a tinkerer or an artisan, we want to see what you do! Sign up to be a Maker presenter, performer, sponsor, to give a workshop or to sell your creations. Visit http://dover.makerfaire.com to learn more!
This year, the museum is inviting individuals, groups, schools, teams, businesses and families to sign up for a creative challenge of their own. Using only cardboard, you are invited to create a sculpture, working machine, interactive game or anything else you can dream up, and it will be displayed at the 5th annual Dover Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, August 26, 2017. It’s easy and free to sign up and the Cardboard Challenge, and it’s a great way to work on a collaborative project this summer.
Dover Adventure Playground NOW OPEN! We're so excited that the new playground adjacent to the museum is now open daily 7am-9:30pm. It's a free public playground with a ton of unique features including a life-size flat-bottomed vintage gundalow boat, a net climber, swings and slides, a 3-story Garrison tower, a 1,200 pound, 3x8 foot climbable Alewife granite fish sculpture, a splash pad and so much more. If you're planning on visiting the museum and playground, we've put together a few tips over on our blog!
Create A Pet Rock Saturday, July 8, 10am-5pm Make a forever friend, who is easy to love and requires little care! No one knows what pet rocks eat but they seem to thrive without food. They also are easy to train and quickly learn how to "sit" and "stay." Enjoy creating and designing your own pet rock, then decorate a comfy home for your rock and give it a name! Stop into the STEAM Innovation Lab to learn about the different kinds of rocks found in NH, make a good deed bead friendship necklace and add a kind thought to a rock and add it to our "Kindness Rocks" community art project. Free with museum admission.
FoodWorks with Hannaford: Room for Dessert! Thursday, July 13, 10:30am-Noon Desserts often get a bad rap, but there’s no reason a healthy diet has to skip out on the sweet! Join a Museum educator as we take a look at how to have your cake and eat it too! Learn how to indulge your sweet tooth the healthy way! This program is free with museum admission. No reservations required. Sponsored by Hannaford.
Anyone Can Grow Food: Healing Herbs Tuesday, July 18, 11am & 2pm We will be taking groups to our 3 Sisters Garden to explore and learn about the many herbs that we are growing and how native people would use those herbs and plants for healing purposes. Free with museum admission.
Animal Day! Wednesday, July 19, 11am-2pm Join us as we celebrate our amazing animal friends! We will have special guests from the Cocheco Valley Humane Society visit us with appearances between 11am-2pm. There will be animal activities throughout the museum including animal sound identification games, habitat playgrounds, "bird and beaks" and a pet washing station! Free with museum admission.
Alzheimer’s Café:
Special Off-site Picnic Thursday, July 20, Noon-2pm People living with Alzheimer's disease are welcomed on the third Thursday of each month during Alzheimer’s Cafe, along with their family members and care partners, to gather in a supportive, non-clinical setting to chat, relax and socialize while enjoying complimentary refreshments. There is no cost for this month’s picnic Café, but reservations are requested. Please RSVP to paula@childrens-museum.org.
Alzheimer’s Café is sponsored by Abbie Moseley Trust and the Ouellett and Furbush Family Fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.
Meet Our New T-Rex! A life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex skull cast, along with a life-size footprint cast, are generously on loan to the museum, gifted by Shawn Warren of The PAST, and made possible by the love and support of June Marie Warren and William Donald Warren of Neillsville, Wisconsin. The T. Rex specimens (known as AMNH 5027) join an augmented reality sand table, Triceratops fossil casts and an area to dig for fossils and make ammonite fossil rubbings in the museum’s popular Dino Detective exhibit.
Take a #CMNHSummerSelfie with either this T-Rex or the Big Blue Crab in front of the museum, share it on social media, and be entered to win 4 tickets to Santa's Village! We will pick a random winner on Friday, August 4th.
ALL SUMMER LONG The museum is part of the Blue Star Museum program, sponsored by People's United Bank, which means we offer free admission to active duty & veteran military personnel and their families between Memorial Day and September 3 (we are closed on Labor Day).
The MUSE Studio has drop-in creative challenges every day! Throughout the spring and summer you'll see activities related to the "13 Moons: An Abenaki Child's Year" art exhibition on view in Gallery 6.
Thank you to our MUSE Studio sponsors D.F. Richard!
The STEAM Innovation Lab has drop-in programs scheduled at different times throughout the day. The theme for July's activities are "Get Outside with Steam" and features activities like Sun Prints, Straw Planes, Frogs, Bird Zip Lines, Potato Porcupines and more! Free with museum admission.
