Category: Education

Community Read

This year we join local libraries and community partners for the tenth year of the Longwood Gardens’ Community Read — a program designed to encourage reading for pleasure and start a conversation. In 2023, the Community Read program takes a look at how food is a connector of people — especially for special moments — and how food connects to the world of plants and gardening.
The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is delighted to be part of Community Read with a special program tailored for our young friends. In the children’s book, Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make you a Pie, by Robbin Gourley, the characters focus on farm-to-table all year round.

Special program for Spring 2023

Longwood Gardens Community Read: Mobile Museum Outreach Program

This program is available beginning March 1, 2023, but you can register now.

Perfect for schools, libraries, daycares, afterschool groups, community centers, and more!
Fee: $150 per program | Maximum Participants: 40 | Length:  45-60 minutes
Program Title Ages Description
Bring me some apples and I’ll make you a pie: a story about Edna Lewis 4-7 In the children’s book, Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make you a Pie: A story about Edna Lewis, by Robbin Gourley, the characters focus on farm-to-table all year round.
As part of the Longwood Gardens Community Read Program, the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science comes to you to explore how the seasons are unique and their effect on the growth of local crops. Learn why we don’t only get flowers after May showers, but all year long!
Learn about all of our Mobile Museum programs

Ready to register?

Mobile Museum Outreach program registration form

Thank you PNC Grow Up Great

For the last decade, museum educators have partnered with PNC Grow Up Great to develop, pilot and present professional development programs for early-childhood educators. Over the last two years, through another generous grant from PNC, we redesigned the Seeing Science Everywhere: Animals and Their Habitats training program and developed and tested a new two-part teacher professional development workshop, Science Up: Earth and Sky.

In fall 2021, Continuing Education Coordinator Lois Lamond presented Science Up: Earth and Sky workshops to 241 early childhood teachers from Wilmington Head Start and Children and Families First, representing all three counties in Delaware. The training incorporated new technology in the PNC Resource Center within the Nature Nook including a short-throw projector, wall-mounted webcam, microphone, and a new surround sound speaker system. The new equipment is also used for virtual programming and meetings, as well as in-person presentations in the Nature Nook.

Part of the grant included developing Earth and Sky activity kits for the schools and Head Start centers to use in their classrooms. Twenty-six kits were created for the Wilmington Head Start and Children and Families First classrooms, with additional kits available for loan to teachers who take the training workshops in the future. Both kits include books and hands-on tools, science experiments, and activities. A highlight of the Earth kit is a collection of Delaware rocks and minerals donated by the Delaware Mineralogical Society. DMS donated 19 sets of rocks for the kits.

In recognition of PNC’s support of the Museum’s education programs and metamorphosis into the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science, the Nature Nook will be renamed the PNC Grow Up Great Nature Nook.

Some of the items in the Sky kit include a solar system model and a telescope designed for preschoolers.
MaryAnn Levan, Junior Program Chair for the Delaware Mineralogical Society, presents Delaware rocks and mineral kits to Continuing Education Coordinator Lois Lamond and Public Engagement Director Jill Karlson.
Continuing Education Coordinator Lois Lamond and Public Engagement Manager Cathy Perrotto demonstrate an experiment for pre-k educators as part of the Science Up: Earth and Sky program.
The PNC Resource Center in the Nature Nook offers new technology for offering programs to educators.

Learn more about the PNC Grow Up Great program, including early learning resources, lesson plans, and more!