Outstanding Educator: the La Crosse Children’s Museum
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) – A La Crosse business that recently reached its 25th anniversary continues to combine learning and fun for children. First News at Nine’s Dashal Mentzel has more in this month’s edition of our Outstanding Educator Series.
The Children’s Museum of La Crosse has spent more than two decades creating games, activities, and simulations for kids of all ages. Ellen Palmer says the goal of the children’s museum is to show that playing is learning, “Everything we have has an educational benefit, whether that’s you’re pretending to be an auto mechanic or playing banker or grabbing a book and reading everything we do is both fun and educational.”
Ann Christianson has been the Executive Director for 3 months. She enjoys seeing the kids interacting with all there is to offer at the museum. “I love the fact that kids just come in and walk up, walk in the door, and their eyes just light up and they just know this whole place is just specifically for them. I learned so much actually, just watching them just to engage with the space.”
The museum also works with local organizations to run educational programs for the kids. “Our programs are volunteer-driven. So, we have volunteers sign up and they’ll run an activity in our program room, which is in our basement. Trane does their STEAM team programming. So, we do some STEM-based and STEAM-based programming with one of our volunteers.”
Christianson says having the kids learn by experiencing things on their own at the museum is a perfect way for them to learn. “We don’t need to tell them to do anything. Here, they just want to have fun. And they are learning as they do. Every time they come here, whether they’ve been here 5 or 6 times, they always find something else new to play with.”
Even after 25 years, the Children’s Museum of La Crosse continues to keep kids educated and entertained at the same time. In La Crosse, Dashal Mentzel First News at Nine.
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