The Museum of Me!
Have a go at making your own Museum
If you can’t come to us we thought why not try creating your own mini museum at home?
Emma our Educator, has already had a go at making hers.
Read on to find out how you too can create your very own wonderful Museum of Me!
Have you been to a museum before? What did you see?
Museums collect all sorts of things.
We give them a special name, artefacts.
At the Navy Museum we collect artefacts that help us to tell people about the story of the Navy.
In a museum you might see an exhibition, this is when different artefacts are put together in a display to tell people about something or, or someone.
Last year we had an exhibition of photographs of the Navy, Army and Airforce taken by eight New Zealand Defence Force Photographers.
Here’s a photo taken by Petty Officer Chris Weissenborn of Lieutenant Sam Fox on Anzac Day in 2021 when we were in Lockdown.
Can you make your own museum exhibition?
Here’s mine!
Read on to find out how to make your Museum of Me.
Or, download the instructions here.
My exhibition is all about me…
I’ve chosen five artefacts that I wanted to share that I think are interesting:
- Toy bear
- Toy bear with red jumper
- Monster Island Book
- The Noisy Book
- Grey Cat (Perfecter)
You can make your own display for people in your house to come and see.
It might be that you have lots of things that you want to include in your museum. You could use these questions to help you decide which ones to include.
- Why is this artefact / object important or special to you?
- What does this artefact / object say about you?
- What does it make you think of?
When we put things out on display we have to think about how we can set them out so our visitors can see them.
We also have to make sure they won’t get damaged, this is why some things are in cases in the museum.
At the museum we write labels for our displays so people know a little bit more about the things they are looking at.
Here are my labels.
I didn’t want to write too much but I did want to tell people why I chose these things and what makes them special.
To make my labels I used some card I had lying around the house but any paper would do – it will depend on what you have at home that you can use.
Toy bear with a red jumper
This Winnie the Pooh was given to me when I was a baby by my Dad. This means it is now very old. It was bought in America.
Toy bear
This Winnie the Pooh was given to my daughter when she was born by her Auntie (my sister) in 2019. It was bought in London, England.
Grey toy cat
This grey cat is called Perfecter. It was named after a cat on a TV programme. It is very old and was bought from a toy shop in Exeter, England.
Children’s book
‘The Noisy Book’ was one of my daughter’s first books. It was bought in 2019 and has been chewed on the side.
Children’s pop up book
This book was my favourite book when I was about 7. It is a pop up book about an island of monsters.
You could write longer labels if you wanted to but here at the museum we also give guided tours.
Our guide hosts tell visitors more about the stories behind things on display.
You could give a tour to the people in your house.
Here’s a bit of mine…
You could make your own museum exhibition with anything in your room. Just make sure you only choose things you are allowed to use and if you’re not sure ask one of your adults!
You could choose to make one about Lego models you have built…
Or books you have read…
Or an art gallery of pictures you have drawn…
You could even make the Made Up Museum of very Rare Stuff.
Here is a video clip from the guided tour of my Made up Museum.
These are just ordinary things from my house but I have turned them into amazing mystery objects.
We would love to see the museums you create.
If you would like to share them with us you can send photos of them to: education@navymuseum.co.nz
Remember to include some close up shots if you want us to be able to read your labels.
Please get your parent or guardian to send the photos to us and make sure they read the important stuff written below:
We might share the photos on our website or facebook page so only send us a photo if you are happy for it to be used in this way and make sure…
- It doesn’t have you in it
- It doesn’t show anything you don’t want to share online with people you don’t know (such as personal information or photos of other people)
- The photo file size isn’t too big so you can easily email them.
If we do share your museum online we will only use your first name to let people know who the awesome person was who created the museum.