Macayo's Fundraiser Thursday, August 19

Come to Macayo's Mexican Restaurant this Thursday, August 19 between 11am and 9pm and a portion of your purchase will be donated to help the spot expand its current and upcoming exhibits!

Just click and print our exclusive Macayo's voucher to participate in this easy, delicious fundraiser.

Click here to download and print the voucher!

Tie Drive

Upcoming hands-on weaving exhibit requires the community to "tie one on!"

Whether they're wide, skinny, vintage, novelty, striped or polka-dot,
we need your clean, used ties for weaving at - where else? - the spot!

Celebrate Dad and help our emerging children's museum by donating clean neckties for the spot's upcoming hands-on weaving exhibit! Our month-long "Tie Drive" kicks off at the June 19 Science Saturday Event this weekend. Bring a tie and be entered to win our Grand Prize drawing on Friday, July 30.

Your necktie donations will be used in an exciting weaving exhibit in which children and parents will explore different looms, weaving tools, textiles, vocabulary, history and even some unexpected elements!

Come to our contest kick-off and celebrate Dad at Science Saturday this weekend. Buy your tickets for this special event online or at the door. Two 2-hour sessions are being offered - first at 10am and second at 1pm. What better way for dads and kids to spend time together celebrating fatherhood, learning together, and supporting our community?

Click here for drawing contest rules and details.

the spot is Now Open Every Thursday and Friday!

11:00 am - 3:00 pm

for Art Experiences with our artist-in-residence, Cathi Johnson

$3.00 per person, child or adult

Children will engage in art experiences and create all kinds of visual art, from sculpture to drawing, painting to weaving!

We're Weaving a New Experience for You!

A new hands-on weaving experience is coming to the spot, so to give us more time to present all the new learning fun, we're returning to our regular Fridays-only hours, starting the week of July 5th.

Come see us Fridays each week, 11 am - 3 pm

_{We respectfully recommend adults bring 1 or 2 children at a time to enhance each child's experience with active parental interaction.}

$3 per person, child or adult

Get Your Tickets for Science Saturday!

June 19

Session 1: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Session 2: 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm

Veggie Friends and Fruits, Too!

with Emmy Award-winning artist and nutrition nut, Anne Legge

Families will engage with Ms. Legge in an exciting demonstration of her signature healthy snack creations, then explore various museum stations, including:

• Make fruit and vegetable play-dough art and take-home creations
• Height and weight measurement and free take-home growth chart, courtesy of Ponderosa Pediatrics
• Fitness and stretching station, sponsored by the Prescott YMCA
• Complimentary take-home water bottle and insulated lunch bag from our friends at the Prescott YMCA
• Live children's book fair in conjunction with our Usborne Books fundraiser

This event is geared toward kids ages 5-12 and their parents.

_{We respectfully allow a maximum of 2 children per 1 adult to ensure each child experiences the museum with active parental interaction.}

_{+ plus $2 service fee}

_{$12.00 - $17.00 at the door, respectively, based on availability}

Limited to 13 children per session

Buy tickets online

(be sure to select the proper session; morning or afternoon)

Our Recycling Bin is Happily Full.

We no longer need donations of recyclable paper and cardboard items, but you can still support the spot... a Child's Museum with other types of donations:

Thanks to your overwhelmingly generous response from the public, we no longer need any donations of paper and cardboard recyclable items. Thank you! If you want to make a contribution to the museum, please consider offering any of the following:

• Financial support through PayPal
• Purchase a book for our library from our Usborne Books wishlist
• Donate an item from our Fixture Donations Wishlist
• Donate clean, "pre-owned" neckties; scarves; shoelaces; leather or fabric belts; shoelaces; skeins of yarn, soft rope, and ribbon. Check out our summer Tie Drive to find out how necktie donations can qualify you for entry into a Grand Prize drawing!
• Donate scrapbooking materials, patterned papers, stickers, brads, punches, ribbons, and embellishments.
• Donate wooden, plastic or metal "junk drawer" items such as dice, spools, large nuts and bolts, buttons, springs, thimbles and more.

Get Your Tickets for Science Saturday!

May 22 10:30 am - 1:00 pm

Explore the Solar System with

Arizona’s NASA Educator Resource Director, Stacy DeVeau

$10.00⁺ admission (for one child and one adult)

_{+ plus $2 service fee}

Limited to 20 children, so buy tickets today!

Buy Tickets Online

the spot is Open Every Friday!

11:00 am - 3:00 pm

for Recycle-Upcycle Art Experiences

$3.00 per person, child or adult

Now Open on Fridays!

11:00 am - 3:00 pm

for Recycle-Upcycle Art Experiences

$3.00 per person, child or adult

Give a "5-Spot" for the spot

A five dollar contribution is an easy way for you to support this emerging Prescott area children's museum and help us achieve our most immediate objectives, including:

• Opening our location inside Prescott Gateway Mall full time
• Building our library of books for children
• Building our Wee Nature Spot for Toddlers exhibit

Of course, larger donations of $20, $50, and $100+ are welcome and fully appreciated!

The Children's Museum Alliance, Inc. (CMA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Please help support us with your financial contribution!

We prefer PayPal. Click here for more donation options.

Three New Board Members Needed

Seeking individuals with a business, and/or financial, and/or engineering/science backgrounds to join the Children's Museum Alliance Board.

Click here to learn more and apply

Prescott Chalk-it-Up Art Festival

April 17 & 18, 2010

The spot... a Child's Museum was featured in the 2010 Prescott Chalk-it-Up Art Festival. Our resident artist and exhibit curator, Cathi Johnson, created our fabulous chalk drawing out in front of The Hotel St. Michael on the corner of Gurley and Montezuma.

{vsig}chalk-it-up{/vsig}

¡Graçias! Macayo's Mexican Restaurant Prescott

After more than 5 years of research, forming a Board, developing conceptuals, and creating many partnerships in the Prescott area, the museum Board kicked off 2010 by entering into an active fundraising phase. We have formed a great partnership at The Gateway Mall to open our first exhibits.

Macayo's, one of the restaurants at the mall,  hosted a benefit night for the spot on Tuesday January 26th, 2010. Macayo's manager, Jim de la Torre, has been very supportive and a great cheerleader for us as we have moved forward.  This event provided the museum with 20% of the revenue of each meal purchased on the date of the event to be used for the museum. In total, we raised $160 at our inagural fundraiser! It was a great first step and a success worth celebrating.

Many thanks to Jim de la Torre and our friends at Macayo's Mexican Restaurant at Prescott Gateway Village Shops for lending communtiy support to this great museum!

Gratefully,

The Children's Museum Alliance

The Children's Museum Opens!

Celebrate Spring Break at the spot during our "soft opening" March 15 - 20th from 11:00am to 3:00pm daily.

We are proud to announce our soft opening this week for Spring break of the spot...A Child's Museum at the Prescott Gateway Mall. (March 15th to March 20th from 11AM to 3PM). We will continue to be open each Friday thereafter to introduce our resident artist, Cathi Johnson, in the Art Experience Spot. We premier with our Recycle-Upcycle Art activities and in the near future will bring some of our science activities forward during other times during the week. Our scientists are conjuring up unique and meaningful programs and activities so watch our website, www.thespotmuseum.org, for more information.

We would be pleased to have your agency/organization involved in promoting the education and enrichment of this institution for children and families by sharing this information with your staff and clients. We hope your clients will participate as they may demonstrate the skills you have aided them in developing or that your staff will see this as a place to work with a particular family.

All of you have programs that aid to enhance the lives of families in the northern Arizona community. We believe we can become part of the strong network that also supports families and your programs. Please feel free to drop by and see what has transpired over the past 6 years that now is a reality for this community, as both an educational and cultural institution, as well as a tourist destination site. Our future is very exciting as is the possibility of working with all of you!

We have some amazing plans ready to move forward and we are in our community awareness and fundraising phase. We could enhance this phase by collaborating with you on your programs so you have a place to share with your families. We are interested in partnering with you on programs, grants and in other ways that would be beneficial to your groups as well as ours.

The spot is open!

March 15 - 20

11am - 3pm

then every Friday starting March 26

10:30am - 1pm and 1-3:30pm

for Recycle-Upcycle Art

$3.00 per person, child or adult, ages 3 - 99

Please contact us by email if you would like to partner or discuss this growing cultural institution...we hope you find your way to the spot where children play to learn and adults learn to play!

Recycling hits the spot!

Blending unique activities with featured local artists will provide children with opportunities to use their creativity to design and construct various products.

Update: June 8, 2010:

Thanks to your overwhelmingly generous response from the public, we no longer need any donations of recyclable items. Thank you! If you want to make a contribution to the museum, please consider offering one of the following:

• Financial support through PayPal
  
• Purchase a book for our library from our Usborne Books wishlist
• Donate an item from our Fixture Donations Wishlist
  

Update: May 5, 2010:

Thanks to the excellent response from the public, we currently have all the recyclable items such as paper, cardboard, styrofoam, containers, wood scraps, bubble wrap, crayons and markers that we need.   If you wish to contribute, we are respectfully asking only for crafting items listed below.  

We encourage children to be conscious of the environment and the items they use on a regular basis. Help us by recycling items that children may then upcycle into artistic creations. The spot...a Child's Museum needs a variety of clean and child-appropriate items to carry out the theme of Recycle-Upcycle Art. 

The spot...a Child's Museum will be open to receive recycle items Tuesday, January 5th from 1 - 4 pm and Wednesday, January 6th from 11 - 2 pm. There will be weekly times this month for drop offs...details coming soon.

The spot...a Child's Museum continously needs a variety of child-appropriate crafting items to carry out the theme of Recycle-Upcycle Art.  We encourage the community to donate materials such as:

• Weavables: Ribbons, ties, belts, scarves, yarn, string, rope, twine, craft items and so on.
• Sculptures: Beads, buttons, keys, bottle caps, paper clips, coins, CDs, and many items from the home junk drawer!
• Mechanical: Nuts, bolts, wire, pliers, screws, scissors...
• Scrapbooking materials: patterned papers, stickers, stencils, stamps, embellishments...
• Books: Old and new children's books to build upon our library. Currently searching for those related to art, the environment, and recycling, but also need those for toddlers and other topic areas, like science, history, cultures, and more!

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to share their talents and creations in the spot? Contact us for more information and speak with our artist in residence.

Happy New Year!

It is never too late to make a generous donation that will help support children's educational programs.

Please send your contribution to us at:
PO Box 3938 Prescott Arizona 86303

or place it in an envelope in our coin drop at the Gateway Mall spot location.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Enjoy the beginning of a new year and watch for much more from the spot...a Child's Museum!

Thank you for your meaningful contributions!

Most Sincerely,
The Children's Museum Alliance, Inc.
501(c)3 organization

December 15, 2009 - Art Material Donations Needed!

Got paper, yarn, buttons, fabrics, old keys, beads lying around? Donate them to the spot for children's arts projects! Read more about how your donation can contribute to Northern Arizona's first children's museum in this recent article published in Prescott area's newspaper, the Daily Courier.

Read the full article from the Daily Courier...

Locals Rally to Help the spot

Local support and news coverage reflect the Prescott area's rally to help the spot...a Child's Museum emerge as a premier discovery place for Arizona's children. Here, an excerpt and link to a recent article from the Prescott area's newspaper, the Daily Courier.

Read the full article from the Daily Courier...

AM Arizona Morning Show Spotlights the spot

Judy Paris, president, and Cindy Foss, vice-president of the Children's Museum Alliance appeared on the AM Arizona program on az*tv 7 (KAZT Phoenix) program with hosts Tonya Mock and Lew Rees in October 2009. Judy and Cindy get the word out about our fundraising phase, future plans and more.

Local TV Appearance Helps Raise Awareness, Money and Hopes

Judy Paris' appearance on Prescott's Access 13 television program, "I Believe" with Elisabeth Ruffner, was one more step toward "connecting the dots" in our plan to open a children's museum in northern Arizona. Prescott is the prime location for this premier destination and cultural institution.

"I Believe" with host Elisabeth Ruffner airs every Sunday night at 5:30 p.m. and Monday at 3:00 p.m. The program focuses on Prescott activists and how the activist came to his/her activism in the community.

In the interview, you'll hear how Judy Paris' community volunteer work is founded in her own family and its values. Her grandparents were active in their community and her parents were excellent role models for "giving back" and "working together" for the greater whole.

Paris' call to action on this museum began in 2004. With a background in education and work with families, it became an interest that needed to be brought to reality. Paris studied and researched the possibilities with her daughter. She visited children's museums around the country, joined the national organization and then began to speak with close friends about the possibilities of starting a children's museum in Prescott. With the help of a friend, Cindy Foss, Paris organized a community meeting in 2007 and debated the pros and cons of bringing this project to the Prescott area. By fall of 2007 Paris and Foss had gathered 12 community members to sit on an advisory group and being to found the Corporation, building upon the structure and vision. In 2008 with a kind donation from Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe, they held a charrette to analyze and design the vision. Through their newly established Children's Museum Alliance, a non-profit and Arizona corporation, they developed the principles, graphics and work that you see today at the spot...a Child's Museum.

The project continues with many incredible people from the community and an excellent Board. People who join this project believe in children, believe in family, believe in our community and believe in the future.  They are all voluteers, so their time and money is sometimes limited. They welcome support from they community in many forms. It may seem that the musuem moves slowly, but Paris, the board and the volunteers see the value in doing this "right"!

The spot is currently in a fundraising and marketing phase. Exhibits are ready to go, and the museum needs monetary support now to keep the spot open on a more regular basis. The spot is currently open Fridays from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm for Recycle-Upcycle Art Experiences. Admission is $3.00 per person, child or adult, ages 3 - 99.

Through the museum's "spot" at Prescott Gateway Mall next to Dillard's, Paris and the museum's supporters seek to raise awareness, raise money, and raise hopes.