Bags and bags of fun

Here is our intern Hannah reporting on family backpack activities run every Tuesday over the summer between 2-4pm:

"Well what a busy summer it was handing out backpacks to the public! Lucky visitors had the chance to borrow a backpack and explore the collections in the Pitt Rivers and Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Visitors would pick which collection they would like to explore and then take their bag around the Museum to discover many wonderful objects. In the Pitt Rivers the bags were based on our Egypt collection. You could dress up to look like the god Horus or even wrap each other up like our mummy!

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History either had a bag all about dinosaurs (always very popular!) or a bag to explore all things creepy crawly. But if you were going to be a true explorer you of course needed to take your very own explorer hat to complete the look!

Modelling Explorer Hats © Pitt Rivers Museum

My task was to make sure that all our bags came back, were checked and recorded so they could be sent off again. This was often a rather lively task and we would have a queue of visitors eager to get going to explore the Museum with a bag. We had to try our best to stay calm and go as quickly as possible. We worked out that over 50 bags went out each time!

Handing Out Backpacks© Pitt Rivers Museum 

 

It was really lovely to see so many happy faces taking their bags around the Museum and I think the parents really loved having an extra thing to help engage their children with the collections. We received great feedback about how wonderful it was for the children and that it was suitable for all ages- even for little ones that could just sit down calmly and have a play".