Mini 'museum' encourages learning through play
Jan. 6—Children can be shoppers, beauticians, builders or just about anything at a new hands-on children's museum.
Mini Muskogee Play Museum, which opens this weekend at 950 N. York St., features a child-sized community with different rooms depicting a store, fire station, house, construction site and other neighborhood attractions.
"It's where kids can come in and pretend to do what their parents do," said Victoria Yarbrough, who is putting the mini city together. "This is to bring out their imagination, their creativity. This is for parents to get involved."
Parents can bring their children, from toddler to age 10, to explore the different areas, she said. Yarbrough also said Mini Muskogee Play Museum is not a daycare center where parents leave their children. Parents must book a time and sign a waiver.
"This is something I encourage parents to actually do with their kids," she said. "They're welcome to sit out on benches if they like, I actually encourage parents to learn how their children learn — that has helped us. My kids don't learn the same way that I learned. It was things like this we did at home that helped us figure that out."
Parents sign up and bring their children for two-hour play sessions, at set times from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is $10 per child, and half price per child after the second sibling. So three children would be $25. One parent is admitted free, every other adult in a party is $5.
Yarbrough, who has two children, said she found inspiration from play museums across the United States. Some are museum franchises, which charge $15 per child, she said.
She said opening a franchise was "something we were playing around with in our heads."
"Then we decided we wanted to make our own," Yarbrough said. "It's all custom made. I learned how to do drywall while I was here."
The museum has been a family and friend effort, Yarbrough said.
"We tried to get funding and it didn't work," she said. "My mom has been helping us, my husband's family has been helping us."
Yarbrough said her mother owned four daycare centers in Durant.
"She based it all off of educational experience, so, it wasn't all play," Yarbrough said.
Mini Muskogee will have a play house with a child-size kitchen, washer/dryer and baby dolls. A kiddie grocery store has an array of foods and a checkout counter. A food court will have play sandwiches, play pizza, a play diner and a play bakery.
There also will be a fire station.
"We've got a firefighter costume, roll-up hose, a map, something you find in a fire station," Yarbrough said.
A police station has a booking table, mugshot, even a jail. A veterinarian office will have stuffed animals.
"For the post office, we made wooden letters, they are going to have which building they will go to," Yarbrough said, adding that each room will have its own mailbox.
Yarbrough's 7-year-old daughter Chloe said she loves the hair salon.
Children can read in a recliner and at a picnic table in the library. Yarbrough said she encourages people to donate children's books.
A construction site will enable children to build things with blocks, she said.
Yarbrough said children can learn "everyday things" at the museum. She said the salon can help children feel more at ease when they get a haircut and the doctor's office can help keep them from being afraid to go to the doctor.
