During my time as the Chief Historical Interpreter at the Murney Tower Museum for the 2018 operating season, I planned, researched, and created a colouring and activity book for children. Families with children, school groups, and camps contribute greatly to the museum attendance. The goal of the colouring and activity book is to enhance the experience of these visitors by making their visit more interactive and educational.
Currently, the museum has limited programming and activities for children, especially in comparison to museums and historic sites in the surrounding Kingston area. This colouring and activity book when paired with a new educational programming plan being developed by a fellow historical interpreter, Yanny Zhang, will make the museum more engaging for children while maintaining its older audiences.
As a child, I remember visiting Murney Tower in primary school with my class. My hope with this colouring and activity book is to enhance other children's museum experience by providing them with a memorable souvenir and an educational tool.
The 20 page bilingual (English and French) colouring and activity book includes 15 illustrations of museum artifacts and tower features, a word search, word scramble, and maze. Each illustration is accompanied by a museum-related question, whether it be in the form of a mystery item riddle, fill-in-the-blank, or match game. The answer to each of these questions can be found throughout the museum or during a guided tour lead by a historical interpreter.
In my development of this colouring and activity book, I:
- Determined and selected the key artifacts from the museum collection that would be appropriate for its target audience
- Drew 18 artifacts and tower architectural features to serve as colouring pages
- Applied my knowledge as a historical interpreter to create museum-related questions and activities that reflect the reading and skill level of the target audience of the book
- Studied each physical artifact and the museum inventory, which allowed me to capture the historical authenticity of each artifact in the illustrations
- Used Microsoft Publisher to design the book, that resulted in a cost-efficient and simple layout that is easy for children to follow
- Collaborated with a French-speaking coworker to make the colouring and activity book bilingual, which will help make it more accessible and create an additional learning opportunity for children
Below are some of the pages of the colouring and activity book. As of July 2019, two versions of The Murney Tower Museum Colouring and Activity Book are available. A black and white copy can be purchased at $2.50 per student/ camper as an add-on option for pre-booked school and summer camp tours. And a colour-cover and higher-quality paper version can be purchased through the Murney Tower gift shop for $15.00 or 2 for $25.00.
