Marbles Kids Museum

Programs: Program accomplishments for fy2016-2017 - the 2016-2017 fiscal year was productive, eventful and purposeful for marbles kids museum. Our mission is to spark imagination, discovery, and learning through play. It is through play that children learn best, discovering who they are, how to solve problems, express feelings and share ideas. In support of our mission, marbles delivers powerful play experiences aligned with five core content initiatives: ready set learn, be healthy be active, create innovate, explore experiment, and connect. Content is delivered through innovative and interactive exhibits, daily educational programs, field trips, camps, special access programs and giant screen imax films. Marbles kids museum served over 675,000 visitors in fy2016-2017. Award-winning field trip programs were attended by over 77,000 students from across the state of north carolina in fiscal year 2016-2017. Museum field trips offer open-ended museum exploration as well as specialty programs using hands-on activities covering subjects like financial literacy, physical activity, weather, engineering and more giving kids the opportunity to explore topics learned about in the classroom in a hands-on way. Marbles offers an innovative approach to curriculum-aligned educational material by integrating imax documentaries with hands-on programming called learning labs for students in grades 5-8, exposing students to unique ways to explore content delivered in the film, bringing it to life with hands-on manipulatives and activities. Camp marbles was highly successful in fy2016-2017, engaging over 3,600 kids in hands-on, minds-on activities such as cooking, creating, building and experimenting. As part of our marbles full circle access program, 137 children from low income families received scholarships to participate in our popular summer camps programs. Through our marbles full circle outreach programs, we served over 47,600 guests in traditionally underserved populations by providing free museum access, inviting all children in the community to play at marbles despite financial or physical limitations. Playfree, our museum access program dedicated to serving at-risk title i and preschool groups and a component of full circle, enabled over 7,600 children to visit marbles in fy2016-2017. Our weekly twilight thursday nights presented by terminix for working families, when we stay open late and offer reduced admission, served over 16,100 visitors in fy2016-2017. Kickoff to kindergarten, an event held for free for incoming kindergarteners and their families, every june for families in year-round schools and every august for families in traditional calendar schools, served almost 2,800 free guests. Family fun night, a bimonthly event for children with special needs and their families, served 1,800 visitors with special programming and activities. In addition, more than 4,800 family admission passes were distributed to nonprofit and community organizations serving families in need, enabling them to experience the power of play together at the museum. Marbles was listed once again among the top ten field trip destinations in north carolina and was the second most visited museum in raleigh.