“Just another lonely head.”
@ROMToronto Ancient Rome/Greece WKND runs June 9/10!
The FINAL Family Fun Weekend of the Season!
So, here we are. Our last Family Fun Weekend of the season! It’s been a lot of fun. Let’s take a stroll through some wonderful weekend memories!
Who can say no to an animal mask?
Remember this? Vice-President of the ROM, Dan Rahimi, talking archaeology with the kids - actually my favourite memory.
This was special: Live birds in the dinosaur gallery - like the greatest family reunion.
Arts for Children and Youth have done a fantastic job. So glad we’ve had them on the team.
Hadrosaur, meet Li’l Hadrosaur.
Probably my best look.
Where I’m going with this…
If you liked those fun memories, come on out one last time for Ancient Rome & Greece Weekend! We’ll have more of the same awesomeness you’ve come to expect.
-We’ll have some of our great curators out, like Paul Denis, this weekend to talk to you about their work, as well as show you some Out Of The Vault objects. Always my favourite part of our weekends.
-Like historical reenactors? Maybe you just like Centurions? We got that this weekend. Look for our Roman soldiers taking a stroll around the ROM. Even better, they’ll have swords, spears, shields etc. out for you to see and interact with.
-We have some really fun art projects lined up for you this weekend, too. And best of all, they’re taking place RIGHT in the galleries. Look for activities like making bulla (lucky charms), mosaics, as well as try your hand at a game of knucklebones and dress in some togas! This AND MORE will be taking place across the third floor in our Byzantine, Rome and Greece galleries.
-Obviously we have some old favorites like touch tables, facilitators on the floor to answer your ancient-related questions, special rarely seen artifacts, and our resident artist from Arts for Children and Youth.
-But maybe this is the best thing: Get ready… Here we go… We’ll have ARCHERY happening IN THE ROM this weekend! Yes, find your inner Katniss, Legolas and Robin and have a go at letting an arrow fly. In the ROM. Can’t contain my excitement for this! From 11am to 4pm!
Ancient Rome and Greece Weekend runs on June 9th and 10th from 11am to 4pm. Join us one last time this season and meet your #museumheroes, create something from the past and get up close with history!
Want to see what we did at previous Family Fun Weekends? Click away!
-March 3-4: Celtic Weekend
-April 14-15: Archaeology Weekend
-April 28-29: Dinos Weekend
-May 5-6: Space Weekend
-May 12-13: Ancient Egypt Weekend
-May 19-21: Awesome Animals Weekend
Our Animal Weekend wrap up!
Let me be CLEAR here. We had live animals in our galleries this weekend. Hawks in Dinosaurs. Mammals and owls in Europe. Reptiles in Rome. Snakes, and bugs, and geckos and more in Schad and the #ROMHandsOn galleries. I’m going to describe this specialness through tweets and photos to give you an idea of how cool it was to be here!
Actually a SMALL eagle. I was just as shocked.
Smart lil’ non venomous milk snake looks like the ultra venomous coral snake. #CleverGirl
Our Gurgle overcomes snake phobia, reluctantly! twitter.com/GreenROM/statu…
— ROMBio (@GreenROM) May 20, 2012
New dinosaur and old dinosaur, just posting. #totalgeekout
I wanna get across something here. We have live animals. IN THE GALLERIES.
@ROMToronto Animal Weekend!
Not Patrick.
@ROMToronto Invertebrate Zoology should be renamed “Krusty Krabs” for all the crabs.
The @ROMToronto Antler Room. We will be spending a TON of time here over the next while. LOTS of photos.
@ROMToronto Animal Weekend!
A lion, a great white & a fanged frog. That tooth cray.
A few of the special specimens we’ve brought out for @ROMToronto Animal Weekend!
This is me. @ROMToronto Animal Weekend. Reenacting #SharkWeek.
SSSSsss… c-CAW! RrAWR! Animal Weekend is Here!
I used to walk through the halls of my high school (yes, high school - I don’t know what was wrong with me either) making animal noises. Not the normal ones like “moo” and “oink”, but the more obscure ones (I guess it’s the hipster in me). For instance, my impression of the Komodo dragon had a sort of snake and bark sound, and the giraffe, since I had no idea what sound they make (do you?) was just, “giraffe, giraffe!”. I pretty much made the sounds up as I went along.
I love ALL animals. Some I’m also afraid of.
I guess it’s weird that I did this in my teenage years, since unabashedly making animal sounds is definitely a fun aspect of every kid I’ve ever encountered. But, the call of the wild never really left me. I remember I taught a 5 year old group at Saturday Morning Club once called Animal Alphabet. Every week as we walked through the galleries, we would make the sounds of the animals we saw in the cases. It would start pretty calmly… stalking past the tiger, we would “purrrr”; tiptoeing passed the snakes, we would all speak in parseltongue; scurrying past the cockroaches, we’d “hissssss”. In the end, the kids abandoned the idea of mimicking different animals and decided all they wanted to do was roar since it was the most fun – even when we passed the giant squid, though it did evoke a few “ooh”s and “aaah”s.
Apparently giant squids roar.
Pretending to be an animal is so liberating. It allows you to fully embrace your imagination and become something new entirely. You can fly like the albatross, jump like a cricket, even nap like cat. I love how kids can snap into such imaginative roles and really run with it.
Where I’m going with this…
This long weekend (May 19, 20, 21) is Animal Weekend at the ROM and we want to help inspire that imagination in everyone – come check out our animals! We’re even going to have a bunch of LIVE animals (for real!) around the ROM and in our galleries for you to meet and interact with.
We’re also making animal masks (PLEASE MAKE A POLAR BEAR – they’re my favourite), and our resident artist from Arts for Children and Youth will be back to create an inspired-by-life painting before your eyes.
Also cool, you’ll have a chance to meet professionals who get to study animals and their habitats for a living. Scientists like Amy Lathrop and Bob Murphy will have more live animals (in addition to the ones in the galleries) for you to meet and special specimens for you to learn about. This is a great opportunity for all those budding biologists and veterinarians to ask all the questions they’ve always wanted answered about animals. These great folks can probably also really help you out with your snake impersonation.
So come out to Animal Weekend!
Mooo! Quack! Girraaafffe!
Upcoming Family Fun Weekends 2012 to watch for…
May 19-21: Awesome Animals Weekend
June 9-10: Ancient Rome and Greece Weekend
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Thoughts on our children's programming at the Royal Ontario Museum, as well as science, natural history, art and more! Commentary and photos (unless otherwise noted) by our Coordinator, Kiron Mukherjee.
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