Meet Our New Summer Education Intern, Renessa!

Hello CMoR community! Thank you for welcoming me and I am so excited to be interning at the Children’s Museum of Richmond this summer!

I am a recent graduate of James Madison University (Go Dukes!) but I currently attend Tufts University in Somerville/Medford, Massachusetts as a graduate student in the Museum Education program.

In my spare time, I am an avid reader, movie-goer, artist, and carpool karaoke singer. I also love walking the trails at Deep Run Park and practicing yoga.

Now for a little Q & A…

How do you connect to the museum’s ideas on ‘play’?

As an educator, my goals are to:

• Foster experiences of self-guided discovery based on exploration, free-play, and hands-on activities that allow children to create personal conclusions and new ideas
• And promote connections between personal experiences, identity, culture and our space/environment, which flows quite well with my summer projects!

What will you be working on this summer?

During my time here I will be continuing the museum’s goal of supporting caregiver-child interaction by making Exhibit Guides.

So, if you see an Exhibit Guide, I encourage you to pick one up and see what fun you and your child can have!

Another project I will be working on is creating post-visit activities to share with teachers to deepen learning and informational connections after field trip visits to the museum.

You may also find me supporting a field trip in the museum, in the art studio, or at a community event organized by CMoR!

Now, what’s your favorite place in the museum?

That’s a tricky question! My office is in the Art Studio so I love seeing the carousel every day on my way in. As a child, I was afraid of riding the carousel by myself because of the up-and-down motion but with my parent’s encouragement and modeling of play, it now reminds me of my resilience to conquer my fears.