Fast Facts
AlegreMENTE | Happy Brain: Celebrating early connections is a traveling exhibition designed to engage young children and their caregivers. Kids play and adults learn about how simple, everyday interactions build social-emotional, language, cognitive, and motor skills for a lifetime.
$40K / 3 months + inbound shipping
> Bicultural & bilingual Spanish/English
> Hands-on, interactive, full-body experiences
> Healthy neurodevelopment in early childhood
> Informs and empowers adult caregivers
In AlegreMENTE | Happy Brain: Celebrating early connections visitors celebrate early connections together in a whimsical forest full of families of all kinds, both human and animal!
Each interactive in AlegreMENTE | Happy Brain: Celebrating early connections is designed to engage young children and their caregivers. Kids play and adults learn about how simple, everyday interactions build social-emotional, language, cognitive, and motor skills. Caregivers explore alongside their children, discovering they’re equipped with everything they need to support early brain development and build healthy connections with 0-6 year-olds.
Contact OMSI's Business Manager Catherine Diaz at cdiaz@omsi.edu or 503-797-4628.
Virtual Tour
Fiesta alegre | Happy Dance
This full-body interactive encourages adults and children dance together while animal families from the forest move with the music, too! Caregivers can be Brain Builders with simple calls to action like taking turns copying each others' movement.
Illuminando el cerebro | Lighting Up the Brain
This experience gives children and adults the opportunity to play together on a tilt table rolling balls back and forth on a surface representing brain cell connections. The surface lights up along the paths of balls to call attention connections between children and their caregivers, and between neurons. Paths and neurons light up more and more as balls roll over and over again. Simple messages along the lighted paths highlight the brain-building value of serve-and-return.
Uno encima de otro | Stack It Up
Children and adults create and test construction at this activity table using custom-made manipulatives. This activity supports early STEM learning, cognitive development, and intergenerational engagement through exploring cause and effect.
Cuenteme un cuento | Tell Me A Tale
A place where caregivers and children ages 0-5 can create stories together. Alegremente's "story stones" provide the opportunity for visitors to explore the benefits of language-rich environments by reading out loud, oral storytelling, and practicing vocabulary. Each story stone offers an image of a familiar object along with the name of the object in both Spanish and English. Visitors take turns using the story stones to create unique stories. Adults and children benefit from practicing the skills of creativity and working together.
Piscina infantil | Infant Pool
The enclosed space, soft furnishings, and high contrast graphics make this the perfect place for infants and just-walking toddlers! Sensory toys that feature textures, moving parts, and unique sounds captivate little ones and offer caregivers the opportunity to discover what stimulus is most interesting to their child.
*Can be displayed without balls!
Recursos de Vroom | Vroom Resource Kiosk
Vroom tips share the science of early brain development. One side of this kiosk shares take-home and digital resources. The other side focuses on Vroom video tips that show parents and caregivers ideas for things they can do anytime, anywhere to build their children's brain health for a lifetime. The third side of the kiosk serves as a photo op with hastags for sharing on social media.
Fuente de sabiduria / Fount of Wisdom
While caregivers learn about the basics of brain development in 0-5-year-olds, children are occupied with buttons, sounds, and lights at their height - just below the adult content. Vroom Brain Building Basics share five simple techniques that support adults in their role as brain builders. And a surprise mirror reinforces that caregivers already have everything they need to lovingly build brain health in kids!
Rinconcito de historias | Story Nook
Semi-enclosed, cozy space for caregivers and children to rest, reflect, read, and bond. The pod has soft seating, can provide a sense of privacy for people nursing little ones, and offers lower light and noise levels. The nook contains caregiver messages about the benefits of learning more than one language in early childhood.
Cara feliz | Show Me Happy
Visitors spin the emotion wheel and make faces together, reflecting each emotion in the mirror. Children learn to read and understand the emotional expressions of others and themselves. Understanding how faces express feelings is a foundation for understanding the perspectives of others, which is an important skill in life and in school.
Un espacio para compartir | A Space to Share
Post a variety of questions for visitor groups and caregivers to respond to on the talkback board. Caregivers can express encouragement, current mood, sanity strategies, and favorite childcare tips. Sharing thoughts and feelings about being a caregiver and reading those of others builds a sense of belonging and wellbeing among community members.
Gráfico ambiental | Environmental graphic
Availability
- Spring 2022
Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose | CA
- Summer 2022
Museum of Discovery | Little Rock, AR
- Fall 2022
Glazer Children's Museum | Tampa, FL
- Spring 2023
- Summer 2023
- Fall 2023
National Children's Museum | Washington, D.C.
- Spring 2024
School Resources
COMING 2021 - A collection of PDFs and guides for museum staff and teachers to expand on the educational content of the exhibit, including in-classroom experiments and activities for your museum floor.
Museum Resources
COMING 2021 - This sample floor plan gives you an idea of how Alegremente | Happy Brain will look in your gallery space.
This article first appeared in the journal Exhibition (Spring 2022) Vol. 41 No. 1 and is reproduced with permission. www.name-aam.org.
Media Resources
COMING SOON - All the logos, images, and assets you need to properly market the exhibit, promote sponsors, and get guests excited about their visit!
Questions?
We're here to help you create experiences that will inspire audiences. Allow us to introduce ourselves!
Partners
The goal of the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program is to invest in educational activities, including interactive digital media resources, that complement or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs.
The exhibit is being produced by OMSI through award ID R25OD023738-01.
The Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Brain Institute is dedicated to understanding, healing, and protecting the brain through cutting-edge research, outstanding patient care, innovative public education, and training of future neuroscience leaders for Oregon and the world.
A global program of the Bezos Family Foundation, Vroom helps parents boost their child's learning during the time they already spend together. Vroom meets parents where they are, through the people they already trust and the places they already go. Our goal is to share the science of early brain development in creative ways so all children have the chance to become thriving adults.