By Karen Bloom
The highlight of the weekend is Sunday's anniversary party, featuring an eight foot high (cardboard) cake, decorated with paper chains, paper candles and pierced tin candle holders that the "party guests" have been making over the 10 days of festivities."All the kids on Long Island can become part of the festivities by participating in creating the decorations for the anniversary party. This kind of participation gives them a sense of ownership in the museum, a sense of belonging and of helping to shape the experience. We want all of our visitors-parents and youngsters-to feel LICM is their museum," said Executive Director Bonnie Dixon. It all began with six small exhibits in about 5,000 square feet of space, donated by a local business, that held 98 people at a time. LICM has now matured into a world-class institution-one of the largest in the U.S.-hosting nearly a quarter of a million visitors annually, in its 12 exhibition galleries, housed in a new 40,000 square foot building. The many events taking place have been selected to represent the best of the museum's diverse programming. The celebration started a week ago, Friday, Nov. 14, with the hands-on exhibit of "Reptiles of the Rain Forest," featuring Brooklyn Children's Museum Instructor Corrine Doron and her reptile friends. A music gallery performance, patterns and games day, and the LICM film festival followed. Now it's the young set's turn to take part in the festivities, Thursday, Nov. 20, during "Shake Rattle & Roll Day, a special day-long program for LICM's youngest visitors. Tots can shake, rattle and roll in the popular TotSpot. Activities include TotTunes and baby yoga."Storybooks Comes Alive Day" follows, Friday, Nov. 21. Visitors can visit with their favorite storybook characters who will be strolling around the museum all day. Meet with "Lilly," the charming mouse from Lilly's Purple Plastic Place by Kevin Hankes; "Stella Luna," the bat from the book of the same name by Janell Cannon; along with characters from Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona and Laura Joffe Numeroff's If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Their stories will be read in the Communication Station Gallery and in the Learning Studio, followed by related hands-on activities. "Experiencing these storybook characters interactively makes literature come alive for children," Fuller noted. "They can talk to them, touch them, even hug them. It's the type of experience that enhances children's desire to read and be read to, which stimulates a life-long relationship with books and their endless posibilities."Music fills the museum, Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 22-23, when folksingers Tom Callinan and Ann Shapiro, a husband and wife team and LICM favorites, present a special show of folktales and songs about the many celebrations in our lives. Museum members also will be treated to a "pajama party" Saturday night, with stories, games, and snacks, after the museum closes to the public.Then it all reaches a climax, Sunday Nov. 23, when LICM celebrates a decade of phemonenal growth. The tin lanterns will be lit in the inner lobby, visitors will participate in a birthday parade throughout the museum, counting down to the lighting of the anniversary cake, with snacks in the museum cafeteria. There will be also be a drawing for a $100 gift certificate to the museum store, "the best kept secret on Long Island." And to think that this all came about as the result of a dinner-table conversation among a group of friends wondering why there wasn't a children's museum in the area!
Long Island Children's Museum
Now through Sunday, Nov. 23. Museum admission: $8 over 1 year; $7 seniors; members free. 11 Davis Ave., Garden City. (516) 224-5800 or www.licm.org.
