STEAM With A Theme is a new educational program for little kids and their ‘significant adult’, which begins at Cairns Museum from next Monday.
The brainchild of New York-trained teacher and local mother Sari Lorner, STEAM with a Theme is a program devised in collaboration with Cairns Museum to provide an interactive, museum-based, teacher-led program to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
The program, which targets children aged between two and five, will run weekly in March.
Participants may choose from two session times each Monday morning with block or individual sessions available.
Suzanne Gibson, manager of Cairns Museum, said they were delighted to offer Cairns Children’s Museum a base to operate from.
“The Cairns Children’s Museum program is a great educational activity for pre-school children.
“Sari Lorner is an enthusiastic, skilled and creative collaborator and contributes a new dimension to activating our inner city space,” Ms Gibson said.
Ms Lorner, a stepmother to two teenage children and mother of a pre-schooler, created her not-for-profit Cairns Children’s Museum to fill a gap in the community.
“In the United States, children’s museums are really popular. They are hands-on, interactive discovery centres where kids can play and explore and use their creativity.
“There are museums like this in the major cities around Australia but nothing like it in Cairns.
“Cairns Children’s Museum offers a space where families can go and have fun, while engaging in educationally sound activities across Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM).”
The Cairns Museum program throughout March will focus on the reef and rainforest, and each week there will be activities based on a mystery object.
STEAM With A Theme will be held at the Cairns Museum in the School of Arts Building on the corner of Lake and Shields streets in the city every Monday in March. Session one will be held from 10am to 10.45am and Session two from 11.15am to noon.
Spaces are limited and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. Prices for Cairns Museum members are $12 per workshop for the first child and $3 for each additional child. A five-block session costs $50 for the first child and $15 for each additional child. The cost for non-members is $15 per workshop for the first child and $5 for ach additional child. Five block sessions cost $60 for the first child and $20 for each additional child. There is no charge for siblings under two years.
For more information or to register child participants in the STEAM program, email cairnschildrenmuseum@gmail.com with the names of parent and children, children’s ages, choice of workshop one or two and the dates you wish to attend.
Cairns Museum may be contacted on 4051 5582 or email info@cairnsmuseum.org.auc.
For media enquiries, images or interviews contact:
Tanya Snelling
Strategic PR
P 07 4034 3404 / 0417 202 663
