Dear Friends,

Beginning September 1, 2011 Boston Children’s Museum will repurpose the Teaching Kits program for exciting new programming in our visitor center. Teaching Kits will no longer circulate to schools and after-school programs but will be utilized in on-site programming only.

For nearly 100 years, Boston Children’s Museum has been dedicated to experiential learning and to supporting teachers with resources for use in the classroom. However, over the past decade, the combination of school budget cuts, standardized curriculum and testing, and the wider availability of commercially produced kits has led to a significant diminishing of our Teaching Kits dissemination in schools.

Our much loved Teaching Kits will find a new life in learning laboratory programs in the Museum for children aged 5 and up. We will continue to embrace the mission of making high quality curriculum and use of real artifacts available to all. Teaching Kits will continue to be a vibrant part of our educational programs for students, families, educators and school groups for many years to come.

We honor the support of our many loyal Teaching Kit educators who have accessed kits over the years, and who have contributed content, feedback and good will. Your contributions continue to make our educational programs vibrant and relevant to today’s changing educational landscape. Thank you for your wonderful partnership with us!

We hope you will visit our website to stay in touch with programs for educators and family visitors.  http://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/index.html.  To assist educator’s long accustomed to utilizing the program, the teacher’s guides from select kits are available here for pdf download.  The Kids@fterschool curricula is also available here. For questions or comments please email: kits@bostonchildrensmuseum.org