Melbourne Museum opens $5.8 million Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery

MELBOURNE Museum’s new children’s gallery opens for business today and its developers and testers were as young as just a few months old.
         
               

The new $5.8 million Pauline Gandel Children’s Gallery is designed for children from birth to age five and more than 500 tiny tots helped developers fine tune the final inclusions.

Melbourne Museum education and community programs manager Georgie Meyer said children from local childcare centres, kinders and other groups took part in workshops, design, development and testing of the new 2000sq.m space.

“This new space is very much dedicated to the learning needs and play space for the very young child, from babies to five-year-olds,” Ms Meyer said.

“The original children’s gallery was built when the Museum was built in 2000 so it was 16 years old and time for a refresh.

“That space was aimed at three to eight year olds but so much more is now understood about how learning occurs from birth and how a child’s brain develops from birth and the importance of coming to cultural institutions and making them welcoming for babies and toddlers.”

The new outdoor area includes a dinosaur skeleton stretching across two fully-accessible sandpits, seating and picnic areas, a rock garden featuring geologically important rock types from across Victoria, a crystal cave, growing cubby houses fashioned from apple trees, and other hiding spaces.

Philanthropists Pauline and John Gandel donated $1 million toward the project, with Mrs Gandel describing the new space as “a true game changer in the field of early childhood development and education.”

“Children are our future and we must do everything we can to give them the best possible start in life,” Mrs Gandel said. “Enabling them to have fun while they learn is at the core of the new Children’s Gallery and they are in for a real treat.”