‘Barnsley Museums Makes’ Winter and February Half Term Editions – Care packs

Barnsley Museum Makes is a scheme set up by Barnsley Museum to create care packs for children and families in the local area.

Each pack is full of stimulating activities and materials intended to support learning and wellbeing amongst children and families with a focus on informal family learning at home over the school holidays. 

During the Christmas holidays, a total of 500 BMM Winter Edition packs were created for distribution in early December. The creation of the packs were split evenly – 166 for Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) level, 166 for Key Stage 1 and 166 for Key Stage 2, which will continue for February Half term.

During the first week of February 2021, a total of 500 Barnsley Museums Makes February Half Term Edition family learning packs will be distributed to even more children across the borough. However, due to the current lockdown and school closures, the packs are to be distributed to all children that are attending school.

The themed activities have been created by Barnsley Museum’s Family Learning Team to encourage creativity, play and language development. As well as the chance to enhance and increase access to arts and cultural experiences by addressing barriers amongst parents who may lack skills and confidence to support their child with family learning.

Each learning pack includes:

• 5 printed activity sheets to encourage creativity, play and language development as well as the chance to try a range of simple arts and crafts techniques.
• The sheets are very visual so accessible for people with ESOL or limited literacy skills.
• The themed activities explore visual arts, simple science and textiles.
• The art and craft materials required to complete the activities and suggestions of simple household objects that can also be used.

The project also works in partnership with Family Centres to distribute packs to local families in the Darfield and Athersley areas of the borough. All of the activities offer families the chance to learn and play together whilst exploring themes related to Barnsley Museums collections through creative and playful activities, song, dance and stories. The packs also provide parents with a toolkit of activities to use to support child development and provide stimulation to develop intergenerational family learning.