MORRISTOWN - Board members of the Museum of Makers + Innovators showcased prototypes of games that could be used at the children’s museum they plan to build during a wine tasting fundraiser at the Amanti Vino wine store Tuesday, Nov. 15.
MOMI is a nonprofit which plans to build a community park in the under-construction Morris Marketplace shopping center at the corner of East Hanover Avenue and Martin Luther King Avenue in Morris Township, adjacent to the Hanover Township border.
The park, “Morris Marketplace THINKSCAPE,” is planned to include six innovative playful learning spaces.
The volunteers showcased the Story Spinner and Memory Match games; Board of Trustees President Sara Sorenson of Basking Ridge said that for the Memory Match, which is targeted to children around preschool, kids can match two icons.
For example, a younger child might try to match a horse with another horse, and an older child might find something the horse would go with such as a knight. Kids might also pick something different such as the horse eating the apple, Sorenson said.
“The idea is for the caregiver and the child to have conversations to actually do the game, and that’s where the brain-building is; that’s where the education part is,” Sorenson said. “The more conversations they have, the more it builds literacy; it builds language, and so that’s our goal with the installation for Memory Match.”
The Story Spinner consists of a series of three spinners with icons that caregivers and children can use to pick different pictures to tell stories, Sorenson said.
MOMI board member Andreia Santos of Morris Township said the group’s goal was to raise $10,00 that night, and the overall goal for the project is $100,000. So far, MOMI has collected $35,000, she said.
“We would love community feedback because these are about $25,000 each,” Santos said about the prototypes. “So before we get them ordered, it would be amazing to have both positive and negative feedback.”
Among those in attendance were members of the Morristown Rotary Club; Rotary Vice President Aaron Oliver of Morristown said the Rotary previously gave MOMI a $2,500 grant.
“We’re happy to support and partner with them and see the good works that they do and help support our town,” Oliver said.
“So we’re happy to do that, and we look forward to having that continued partnership with them and see the great work that they’re doing. I love how they had a really innovative idea to create their space that they’re having on East Hanover Avenue and have an interactive playground for all family members.”
At the park, children would be able to tell a story at the Story Spinner, play a matching game at the Memory Match, jump through the Playful Path, meander through the Red Pole Forest, explore the sounds in the Sound Garden with musical flowers, and explore the properties of water at the Creative Canvas.
MOMI was established in 2018 and has a mission to build more playful communities and a children’s museum in New Jersey, the only state in the country that does not have one.
The MOMI team collaborated with the Playful Learning Landscapes Action Network, a nationwide think tank of early childhood researchers and policymakers, and partnered with Morris Township and DeVimy Equities, the developer of Morris Marketplace.
