Children’s Museum of Richmond: How Learning Through Play and Role Modeling Impact Young Children
Throughout the summer, Robins Foundation’s administrative and operations coordinator, Annaliese Santana, interviewed eight inspiring community leaders as part of the foundation’s “Partner Spotlight” initiative. This initiative provides a platform for grantees to highlight their important work in early childhood development and for Robins Foundation to recognize the incredible efforts and successes of our partners.
For her fifth article, Annaliese interviewed Ali Sullivan, Bilingual Family Engagement Manager for the Children’s Museum of Richmond (CMoR).
In 2024 alone, the Children’s Museum of Richmond welcomed 124,100 children into their Richmond and Chesterfield locations. Through educational trips, they have served an additional 5,031 children, educators, and families. CMoR provides children with opportunities to learn through play. Ali Sullivan, an experienced educator, provided compelling insights on the importance of play and role modeling in advancing early childhood development.
Can you please talk a bit about your organization’s mission?
“The Children’s Museum of Richmond inspires growth in all children by engaging families in learning through play.” At the Museum, we are aware of the importance of being role models for children and their families, which is why we embed playfulness and school readiness in all our programs and interactions with the community. One of my favorite things is to create and participate in the museum’s impromptu dancing and movement programs. It is one of the ways we connect and show families the joy of learning through play!
Can you expand on what “Learning through Play” means?
Children make sense of the world through play. Play connects them with their environment and is part of how they learn about relationships and problem-solving. Learning through play can also support social skills, literacy, language development, physical growth, and parent-child connection. For example, in CMoR’s movement Tutus and Ties program, children not only dance with their families but are also practicing gross motor skills, socialization, and creative movement; by playing games like Freeze, parents are shown how children can practice listening, impulse control, and following directions. In Seymour Little School, our mock kindergarten classroom, parents and children are encouraged to play along and practice taking turns, sharing, and listening to stories, all crucial skills for school readiness.
The Children’s Museum partners with families to enhance early childhood development. Some of these programs include the Sprout School, the living lab, and the children’s book bank. Can you walk me through how these programs help families strengthen and support their childrens’ development?
CMoR is home to two YWCA Sprout classrooms. In this program, students take advantage of the entire museum as their learning space, can test new CMoR programs and exhibits, and provide important kid-feedback for those exhibits. Additionally, CMoR collaborates with Sprout teachers for several professional training opportunities throughout the year.
Each academic semester, our Living Lab is maintained by Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Psychology students and faculty. In this program, they conduct research demos and live studies on the museum floor to educate visitors on child development. As part of a separate partnership with VCU, we also have doctoral students and faculty in VCU’s occupational therapy department conduct developmental screenings at the museum. Through these initiatives, many of our families have taken advantage of these screenings and learned more about their child’s development.
Finally, we have managed the Children’s Book Bank since 2012. In this program, we provide families with donated, gently used books to support early literacy and build children’s home libraries. We focus on distributing books to communities that may struggle to access transportation to a library or the means to buy books for their children. This year alone, we have distributed over 16,000 books.
What is one specific issue that the children/families you serve face?
I work with families and children from predominantly Spanish-speaking households. The main barriers are language and low literacy, followed by transportation.
What motivates you to do this work?
This work gives me purpose. I find a lot of satisfaction in “playing” with the families, interacting with their children, sharing resources and ideas to help them practice school readiness at home, and laughing together. I also enjoy being able to relate to them using Spanish, which is not only my native language but also our emotional language.
One of my greatest pleasures is empowering parents to participate in our programs and seeing them demonstrate initiative and leadership.
What do you wish more people understood about the children you serve and/or the work you do?
I would like people to know more about their culture and the valuable contribution these children and families bring to our community; that parents are the first and most important teachers of their children.
How has Robins Foundation supported you all?
The Robins Foundation has been instrumental in developing this mission-aligned work and has supported many of our initiatives. Specifically, Robins has supported the implementation of the Family Engagement Manager position – me! This position allowed us to expand the museum’s work with more families, neighborhoods, and organizations. Through these community partnerships, CMoR continues to connect with and serve the community in such an impactful way.
Is there anything else that you would like to say about your experience in your role or anything that you wanted to talk about during this interview but didn’t get the chance to?
My experience as a Family Engagement Manager has been transformative not only on a professional level, with the growth in the number of families and organizations we can support, but also on a personal level. Last May, I had the opportunity to present our Family Engagement program at the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) national conference, along with three other museums. Through these new challenges, I continue to grow in the Children’s Museum!
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The Children’s Museum is excited to promote their Cultural Encounters program and their Sensory Friendly Nights. To learn more about these programs and many more, please visit https://www.childrensmuseumofrichmond.org/
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