April Fools' Celebration by Museum of Cultural and Natural History
April Fools' Day is the one day of the year when it is acceptable to play pranks on one another.
The Museum of Cultural and Natural History in Rowe Hall played host to an April Fools' Day event aimed at entertaining and mentally stimulating Mount Pleasant children.
Education coordinator Sheree Hall hosted the afternoon filled with hoaxes and tricks. With it being spring break for local Mount Pleasant schools, Hall wanted to put on an eventful week for the kids who remain in town over the break. Flyers were put around town and were sent home to children from kindergarden through sixth grade.
In the spirit of April Fools' Day, Hall put together a lesson plan with numerous activities that fooled the students throughout the day.
“We showed the kids different magic, cards, paper and string tricks. We also told them jokes, like all of my helper's names are Sam, we gave them donut seeds, which were really just Cheerios, and also had a scavenger hunt for the Cmustach (pronounced SMOO-stach) flatworm,” Hall said. “We put together a fake press release that we read to the kids in the beginning that explained the new species of Cmustach flatworms that were discovered in the museum, in which (they) needed to be found.”
Mount Pleasant locals, Jane Frost and her grandson Quintin Frost, received a flyer from school.
“My favorite activity was to see the spider display; there were live and dead ones. I was not scared; I really liked them,” Quintin said.
According to Hall, there is a whole week of events planned out not only to accommodate the kids' needs, but also the needs of CMU students. The museum has activities planned for the whole week, including Crime Scene at the Museum, Explore Ancient Egypt and Vintage Games Encore.
“We really wanted to serve the kids here in town, but it is the students who will be taking away the most from this week,” Hall said. “Students with museum minors have all helped with developing this program. It gives these students in the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences the opportunity to develop a program in terms of what a museum educator does.”
Mount Pleasant sophomore Alec Burch has a museum minor for which he has volunteered to be involved and to receive hands-on experience.
“I have always had a personal connection with museums. When I go on vacation the first thing I want to do is visit the museums,” Burch said. “This was my first time volunteering for the museum, and it was awesome. I had a really good time helping the kids. It was really cute to watch the kids look for the mustaches (aka the Cmustach flatworm).”
