1. Engaging Families

2. What are they?
Backpacks of activities designed around a museum or
an exhibit
Intended to engage children with collections
Types of Activities
Hands on
Observatory
Memory
Visual/art
V&A Magic Glasses Backpack
Photo from V&A Website

3. Benefits
 Engaging
Children with museum exhibits
Families
“Museums can be very one dimensional - … it can be
quite difficult for a child to be absorbed….. if you've
found ways like in these activity bags to make the
actual artefacts [..] come to life, then [children] will
remember them.” - mother at the V&A

4. Objectives
Promote an active learning experience for children &
their parents
Designed to engage the museum displays
Bring Families into the museum
Contents will ignite children’s creativity and
inquisitiveness
Increase time spent in the exhibits
Provide positive museum experience that will
encourage future visits – a relationship with the
museum

6. United States
Original idea started in the late 1990s in the U.S.
Colorado and Massachusettes
Baltimore, Maryland
“The idea behind the packs is to promote active
learning, involving children and parents with art,”
“… they stayed at many of the exhibits longer than they
had at any of our previous museum [visits]”

7. United Kingdom
First used at the Victoria and Albert Museum in
London, in early 2000s.
A staff member had seen the backpacks in a visit to
the U.S.
After the success of the Backpack programme at the
V&A, many more institutions throughout the UK have
begun to implement their own Backpacks.

8. Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A Museum of Decorative
Arts
Award winning backpack
programme
Focus on museum exhibits
which are not immediately
interesting to children
Using a Backpack at the V&A
Photo from V&A Website

9. V&A - 6 different Backpack themes
Fancy Furnishings – 18th
century British
furniture
Emperor’s Party – 16th
century India
Chinese Treasures – Chinese Decorative Art
Metal Detector – Decorative Ironwork
Antique Detective – Victorian Decorative Arts
Magic Glasses – Decorative Glass

10. Fancy Furnishings Instructions
Activities include
Period Music and period Manners
“personality pots” (personification)
Finding animals in period furniture
Finding things in period patterns
Design your own 18th
century room

11. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
 “Cabinet of Curiosities” style museum is an artefact
in and of itself.
Backpack programme was winner of the 2005
Guardian Newspaper Family Friendly Museum Award
Judged by children

12. Fashion Museum, Bath
Backpack programme implemented in September of
2007
Handbags exhibit backpack
Silhouette matching game
Fabric pattern matching game
Handbag fabric dominoes
Children’s story book on theme
Describe the bag activity
Handbag on display at
Fashion Museum of Bath
Photo Fashion Museum website

13. Fashion Museum Results
Children’s and parents’ Comments
 One child liked finding the patterns, “It was like
solving a mystery”
“…like[s] things to look up and investigate.
Appreciated, “Anything that focuses them on the
detail.”

14. Fort Frances Museum
Discover History Backpacks
Fort Frances Museum
Small town museum
Small budget
Backpacks are an attempt to generate more community
engagement with the museum
Entice more visitors and increase time spent in
exhibitions.

15. 5 Themes
Fur Trade
Logging
First Nations
Pioneer
Community

16. Fur Trade Instruction Booklet
5 Activities
Silhouette matching
game
Dress up
Guess the object bags
Children’s book
Memory

17. Silhouette Matching Game

18. Dress Up

19. Children’s Book

20. Guess the Object

21. Memory

22. Fort Frances Test Launch
Responses:
“Enables us to go at our own pace and learn more
than on a quick tour”
“Lots of chances for involvement.”
“Handling cards…[show] you items you may not
notice otherwise”
“Good way to examine the display closely”

23. Engaging families on a budget
Activity Backpacks do not require a large budget
Do not necessarily require backpacks, activity ‘kits’
can be held in various holders
Budget determines the presentation, but not
necessarily the content or the efficacy

24. Trial & Error
Instructional guides are key component
Instruction should be a clear and concise as possible
Labeling very necessary and should be very clear

25. Key points
 Should be free of additional charge
Many large museums require a deposit or another form of security
Does not directly generate revenue, but intended to
entice repeat visits by local visitors
Activities should designed to reach different age groups