Kids create castles at Glazer Children’s Museum exhibit
TAMPA, Fla. - What's the most beautiful castle that you've ever seen? Is it Windsor Castle in England, Edinburgh Castle in Scotland, Kilkenny Castle in Ireland, or maybe Mont-Sait-Michel in France? Maybe your favorite castle is a fictional one like from the Chronicles of Narnia or the Lord of the Rings. No matter what your favorite structure is, now you can create a castle of your own right here in Tampa.
The Glazer Children’s Museum opened the ‘Castle Builder’ exhibit to give kids the chance to see what castle life was like. The exhibit allows children to use their imaginations to create their own fairy tales by stepping into a castle fit for royalty with a throne room, hidden treasure room, and even a dragon to check out.
Adriana Gough had been looking for ways to keep her two boys busy. But that's not easy to keep kids active when it's so hot outside. She learned about the Castle Builder Exhibit and decided to take the boys on a trip thru time at the Glazer Children’s Museum.
“It makes me really happy knowing that I can bring my kids here, and they think they are having playtime, but at the same instance I’m able to talk to them about the medieval time period, which they wouldn't necessarily get exposure to at home watching TV,” she said.
And that's part of the plan according to Kate White, the director of marketing and communication at the Glazer Children’s Museum. “It’s just all about imagination, fairy tales, castles, and design thinking,” she remarked. “The kids don’t even know they are learning.”
Gough's boys loved the construction and then the destruction of the castle using the interactive 3D catapult video game. Her son Joseph perfected his strategy for building the protective walls around his castle.
“It’s cool,” he said. “You need thick walls and then when you hit it, it doesn't break.”
Engineering is part of the critical thinking White said the exhibit is designed to foster with physical examples sprinkled into the exhibit.
“They're real castles that exist in the world, places that you can go visit,” White said. “Kids can also see inside the castle walls, down in the dungeon, inside the courtyard area, there's a lot to learn about castle life.”
The ‘Castle Builder’ exhibit is originally from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis and will be here through January 3, 2021.
Click here to learn more about the castle exhibit and reservations for a castle build time can be made here.
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