Last year, almost 500 children participated in the event at the Great Lakes Campus of NMC. This year, we expect even more kids to fish for rainbow trout in a netted-off area in the Great Lakes Campus Harbor. More than 60 volunteers assist with equipment set-up, fish cleaning, special activities, and kids’ safety.

The event will feature:

• Over 1,000 stocked rainbow trout
• The use of free rods, tackle, and bait
• Experienced assistance and supervision
• Hands-on fish painting by the Great Lakes Children’s Museum
• Free refreshments, courtesy of Orchard Creek Senior Living and Healthcare

Kids Free Fishing Day is a community collaboration between:

• Great Lakes Children’s Museum
• Mich. Department of Natural Resources & the Environment
• Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians
• Great Lakes Water Studies Institute at NMC
• Grand Traverse Area Sportsfishing Association
• U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Traverse City

Under the leadership of the Rotary Clubs of Traverse City

For more photos of the 2012 Kids Free Fishing Day click here.

View Kids Free Fishing Day in a larger map

Every spring we see a surge of school groups and field trips from our region’s elementary schools during the week. In order to accommodate our regular preschool friends, we never schedule a school group on Friday mornings during our Toddler Time program.

However, these groups might be scheduled during other times throughout the week. If you want to check to see if your planned visit might coincide with a scheduled school group, check out the Calendar on our website, which is previewed below and always available at the “Calendar” tab on the menu above.

Get ready for the upcoming 24th annual Earth Day Parade, which takes off from Oryana on Saturday April 20, at 12:30 pm. The Great Lakes Children’s Museum is again hosting a Little Artshram mask- and puppet-making workshop to help children and families get ready to be all decked out for the parade. This is community event; everyone is welcome to walk in the parade. There will also be some BIG puppets and non-motorized floats.

At the Museum workshops your child can make a cool mask or devise an awesome costume. They will be able to use a variety of recycled and found materials to turn themselves into something spectacular for the parade. Then they can walk, scoot, or ride their bike in the parade on April 20 (April 27 rain date).

There is a $10 suggested donation per mask/costume. Children under nine will require adult assistance. Space limited to 10 children per workshop, so please register with the Little Artshram at (231) 715-3105 in advance. For more information about the Earth Day Parade click here…

Friday, April 12 – 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. 

Make a balloon rocket and blast off into the far reaches of the galaxy! (O.K., maybe just the far corners of the Museum!) Create a map of the Solar System that you can keep in your pocket. Find out how much you would weigh on the Moon.

As with all Member Nights, we will provide you and the children who accompany you complimentary refreshments. Also, each member child may bring a young guest free of charge. This is a members-only event. However, you can renew or take out a membership on the night of the event.

This is just another benefit of membership at the Museum and one of our ways to thank you for being a member.

Stock photo – not actual client

Over the past few months, we’ve been working extra hard to raise much-needed funding to provide free admission to the disadvantaged and under-served children in our region. The +PLUS Program (Providing Learning for the Under-Served) is an initiative that we have advanced for nearly ten years and it is designed to bring children and families in to the Museum who would not otherwise be able to afford to visit. We know that a visit to the Museum can have a normalizing effect on people who are struggling.

As a part of our most recent campaign to raise money for +PLUS we have been gathering compelling stories from past visits.

Here are two exceptionally compelling stories from Shannon Cross, a caseworker at Lutheran Child & Family Services of Michigan, that demonstrate the +PLUS program’s positive impact on her client families.

The P family had never been to the Great Lakes Children’s Museum but told me that they had heard a lot about it. They live 50 miles away and between the cost of gas and the price of tickets felt that they couldn’t afford to take all three children, even though they are in Traverse City about once a month. The Museum provided the passes, I provided the transportation, and they loved it! Because the children loved it so much, they began to budget this into their budget every third month. This experience also compelled them to visit another Museum a little closer to their home. When I did a six-month follow up visit, they had also expanded their horizons a bit more and attended a matinee theatre production in their home town. The parents told me that Museum opened their eyes to fun and educational family activities around them. Instead of simply playing games while online, the children began to look for interesting places to visit and told me that they were saving their allowances to help pay for a trip somewhere in the summer.

The M family had been struggling with unemployment, medical bills, medical difficulties, and problems at school. The Museum had just provided me with some passes and I gave some to them. They talked about how they hadn’t had any fun together as a family in several months and it was starting to wear on them. They had a family friend who also wanted to take her child to the Museum and said she would provide the transportation if the M family would provide the entrance fee. I gave them two more tickets, both families went to the Museum the following weekend, and the children and parents were still talking about the experience three months later. They make trips to a specialist in Grand Rapids every other month and said they decided to check out a museum there because of their pleasant experience in Traverse City. They have explored two different places in Grand Rapids and have gone back to the Great Lakes Children’s Museum as well. They told me that their next “adventure” will be to the Dennos Museum in Traverse City.

Shannon concludes: “Sometimes we work with families that have been under such stress, they don’t realize what great opportunities for bonding and growth they are missing.”

These stories inspire us to continue to work to keep the +PLUS program fully funded. Maybe they will inspire you to make a donation. For more information or to donate, call the Museum at 932-4526 or email info@glcm.org. To give online, you can click the “Donate” button at the right and then just send us an email indicating that your gift is earmarked for +PLUS.

Enter the world of the extremely small! Drop in and enjoy the fun of participating in hands on Nano Science investigations. You will be fascinated by things so small that you can’t even see them with your own eyes! There will be opportunities for both children and adults to explore the miniscule world of atoms, molecules, and nanoscale forces. A wide range of exciting NanoDays programs demonstrate the special and unexpected properties found at the nanoscale.

NanoDays is organized by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and takes place across the county. This community-based event is the largest public outreach effort in nanoscale informal science education and involves museums, research centers, and universities from Puerto Rico to Alaska.

For more information about the event, click here. To see the major business supporters, click here.

For our February Member Night we will explore three different cultures—China, the Netherlands and Mexico. Celebrate the Chinese New Year with a dragon dance and learn about the years of the Chinese calendar. Make a brightly colored tissue flower and then visit the Mexican Cantina. Play a Dutch game and have your picture taken in wooden shoes. There will be many more activities for you and the children in your life to do and explore.

As with all Member Nights, we will provide you and the kids with complimentary refreshments. Also, each member child may bring a young guest free of charge. This is a members-only event. However, you can renew or take out a membership on the night of the event.

This is just another benefit of membership at the Museum and one of our ways to thank you for your membership.

Did you know according to the Chinese calendar we’re leaving the year of the Dragon and entering the year of the Snake on February 10, 2013?

On Monday, January 21 we will be offering FREE ADMISSION to the Museum throughout the day thanks to generous support from the DTE Energy Foundation. We are also offering special MLK Peace Day programs and activities from 11 am to 3 pm in celebration of Martin Luther King Day.

To encourage children to think about diversity, tolerance, and acceptance, there will be Peace Day readings  at 11 am, 12 pm, 1 pm and 2 pm , featuring the books My Brother Martin by Christine King Farris (11 am & 1 pm) and It’s Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr (12 pm & 2 pm).

Various hands-on peace activity stations will be set up in the Great Lakes Room from 11 am to 3 pm.  Activities will include age-appropriate experiences with messages about anti-bullying, peaceful communications, and cooperation.

Join us at the Museum for lots of Peace Day fun!

These activities and the free admission are part of the Embrace the Dream series being offered in the Traverse City region from January through March. For a complete listing of the community-wide events view the calendar…  For a more detailed description of the Embrace the Dream activities click here…

With the generous support of the DTE Energy Foundation

We have cut the price in half this year to make it more accessible to everyone. There is lots more information in the Fundraising Events section of our website or you can jump to the landing page for the event by clicking here…

To Register Online visit our event page…