The 13th December was a day to remember for the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. The Learning and Engagement team delivered the annual Singalong with Santa event, which now stands in it’s fifth year of delivery and builds on our extensive early years programme.
This session is an opportunity to celebrate with our youngest visitors, both new ones and regulars. It also acts as an opportunity to promote the wider early years and Christmas programming across the museums and sees a high uptake of secondary spend in Alfreds, who always collaborate with us to offer discounted prices and deals for our family visitors on occasions such as this.
On Tuesday we welcomed 120 babies and toddlers, along with their parents and carers to three sessions that was full of songs, laughter and play! The Covered Court was filled with noise and jingling bells. At the low cost of £1.50 we aim to make this an accessible, festive experience for families and childminders in Coventry. This session is incredibly relaxed, allowing adults to settle in and enjoy the activities without fear of their children running around or making lots of noise… in fact, we encourage it, along with a lot of ‘snowball’ throwing too! Throughout the songs and rhymes, children play with sensory based items, appealing to their instinctive nature to touch and play in a kinaesthetic way, aiding childhood development in the early years.
We received great feedback on the day, with one grandparent taking part in the session two times in a row because of her 1-year-old granddaughters’ enjoyment. We have also started to see feedback coming in online, which shows the real impact of these experiences to our visitors when they go that extra mile to share their views with us.
Thank you to everyone involved, and especially to our incredible Santa Claus who went above and beyond to get into work for this event!
This session also carries a personal feeling of positivity for me. The early years programme is close to my heart having developed it over the years and witness its growth. It’s a real blessing to get so involved with this session each year. Despite changing roles since its inception, Hareena always lets me take the lead on this one, which keeps me connected to our youngest audiences and brings me a huge level of joy.