Traveling children's museum launches in lakes area

Every smile on a child's face gives a Little Falls mom even more reason to keep doing what she is doing.

Kate Courtney launched a traveling children's museum called the Brainerd Lakes Area Children's Museum, which offers programming for young children. She hosts open play times at various libraries in the Brainerd lakes area. The first open play time scheduled at the Brainerd Public Library is Jan. 5, 2019.

Courtney and her family-husband Brent Courtney and their two sons Franklin, 3 and Carter, 1 ½-moved from Des Moines, Iowa, to the central Minnesota city home to Charles Lindbergh in August, where she took a job as the English as a second language teacher/coordinator at Little Falls Community Schools. Courtney said after moving to the area she realized there were so many families with young children-like herself-but no local children museums.

There is a small traveling children's exhibit in Des Moines, which grew to a permanent location in a shopping mall, so Courtney thought she'd try to start one in the lakes area.

Courtney's traveling children's museum is not what some may think of as a typical museum-an institution caring for a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, or historical importance.

"The Brainerd Lakes Area Children's Museum exists to encourage learning through exploration, free play and discovery with interactive exhibits and programs for all children birth through age 10," Courtney states on the museum's Facebook page and her informational postcards. "The museum is dedicated to being a positive resource for parents, caregivers, children and surrounding community."

Courtney reached out to various libraries in the lakes area and so far six libraries-Brainerd, Aitkin, Pierz, Pequot Lakes, Nisswa and Staples-agreed to allow her to bring her traveling exhibit materials to their locations and host play time.

Once an open play time begins, Courtney will have about six to eight stations/activities set up for the children. Courtney said the play time is not structured.

"Kids are free to play with one thing when they are here or they can float through all the activities," Courtney said. "My goal is to have the parents or the caregivers who come to let their kids just freely play and not structure or direct the play they do and to let the kids engage in what they want and to support the play they choose.

"Now that I have younger kids and have learned a lot about early childhood, I have learned the importance of unstructured, free play time. It's so fun to watch the kids as they are learning as they direct their own play. There are a lot of 'aha' or fun moments with kids when they are freely able to play on their own."

Stations include having children play with Kinetic sand to an imagination/dress up space where children may dress up in costumes, such as a firefighter. There are also other play materials, such as Legos and bricks.

"My goal in the future is to add nature-based stuff into the mix," Courtney said, as she would like expose children to nature and plans incorporate nature into the Brainerd library session in January.

Laurel Hall, public services library assistant at the Brainerd library, said the traveling children's museum will be a nice addition to the library's schedule.

"We think this is fantastic," Laurel Hall said of the traveling children's museum. "It's a great idea for our community to have something designated for the kids to do and to reach out to our families. We were very happy to work with her on this."

Courtney continues to work with the libraries on scheduling the open play times and is working on getting more libraries involved. The Little Falls mom would like to come up with a more consistent schedule, such as being at one of the libraries the second Saturday of the month, and so forth.

Courtney's original goal was to have a permanent location in Brainerd or Baxter for the museum. However, she learned there is a group already in the process of planning a permanent children's museum in the area. She would like to partner with them if it works out.

Courtney does not charge the libraries or the children who attend any fees for her work with bringing the traveling museum; she volunteers her time.

"I put in my own money to establish activities for this and I accept donations," Courtney said. "I recently began offering birthday parties and ... I have to be creative in funding to help expand the museum."

Open play time for January-February 2019:

• 10 a.m. Jan. 5, Brainerd Public Library.

• 10 a.m. Jan. 12, Pierz Public Library.

• 5 p.m. Jan. 17, Staples Public Library.

• 10 a.m. Jan. 26, Pequot Lakes Community Library.

• 10 a.m. Feb. 2, open play time, Nisswa Community Children's Library.

• 5 p.m. Feb. 7, Staples library.

• 10 a.m. Feb. 9, Pierz library.

• 10 a.m. Feb. 16, Pequot Lakes Library.