We recently purchased a used 16’ box truck which has been outfitted with shelving and our new Think, Make, Create Lab which offers a variety of make & take STEM activities. Our truck allows us to better store and transport our mobile exhibits to events throughout the region. We are extremely grateful for our grant funds which have allowed us to create such an incredible outreach program. This program has permitted us to show the community a small glimpse of what a children’s museum is all about and what a phenomenal asset it will be for the Magic Valley. We love seeing families imagine, create, dream, explore and discover together!
The Twin Falls Urban Renewal Agency (URA) entered into exclusive negotiations with CMMV for the purchase of a .50 acre lot in down-town Twin Falls on the corner of 3rd Street South and Idaho Street South. Downtown Twin Falls is the heart of our community, and the Children’s Museum of Magic Valley is eager and committed to becoming a vital part of this historical area. We are excited to see the magic within the Magic Valley unfold as we work together to create a beautiful museum for our children.
CMMV’s Board of Directors announced the future site for the children’s museum.
Through the tremendous support of our community, we completed our Founding 50 Campaign, a start-up funding campaign of $150,000.00. These Founding 50 donors believed in us and our mission when we had very little to show except for our passion and tenacity. They trusted us to be good stewards of their donations and believed that we could accomplish this dream. The children’s museum is becoming a reality because of the community’s support and our board’s countless hours of volunteered time.
Businesses
A&T Security Systems, Inc.
Advanced Dental Care
Advanced Foot and Ankle
Anytime Fitness
Aspen Grove Family Therapy
Asthma & Allergy of Idaho, PLLC
Employees of Brizee Heating
Canyon Gate Dental
Center for Physical Rehabilitation
Charmac Trailers, Inc.
Children’s Clear Vision, PLLC
Coleman, Lopes & Co, PLLC
D.L. Evans Bank
Doctors at St Luke’s Obstetrics & Gynecology
Dr. Jason Greenhalgh, St. Luke’s Urology
Dr. Kurtis Reed, St. Luke’s Dermatology
Dr. Kylan Peterson, St. Luke’s Otolaryngology
Dr. Mark Crandall, St. Luke’s Cardiology
Dr. Michael McEntire, St. Luke’s Pain Medicine
Dr. Richard Manwaring, Children’s Dentistry of Twin Falls
Dr. Russell & Tia Mayes
Edward Jones Investments
Falls Orthodontics
First Federal Savings Bank
Frontier Pediatric Partners, PLLC
Gateway Real Estate
Green Acres Pet Center
Idaho Central Credit Union
Lytle Signs
Magic Valley Orthodontics, PLLC
North Canyon Pediatrics
North College Dental
Northwest Farm Credit Services
Oasis Stop ‘N Go, LLC
Petersen Brothers Construction
Petro’s Texaco Service Station
Petruzzelli Electric
Pioneer Federal Credit Union
Plant Therapy
Primary Therapy Source
Sage Center on 8th Catering & Events
Smiles 4 Kids
Smith Pediatric Dentistry
Snake River Pool & Spa
St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center
Summit Dental Care
Tamaki Control
TitleFact, Inc.
Ward Orthodontics
Welch, Allan & Associates
Wills Toyota
Individuals/Families
TJ & Tennille Adams & Family
Tom & Cheri Aiello
Dr. Eric & Elisa Allan
Dr. Toby & Jenny Anderton
Rudy & Sami Ashenbrener
Dr. Bryce & Heidi Barfuss
Judi Baxter
Dr. Jason & Lynn Beard
Mark & Alicia Bell
Trevor & Bethany Bell
Michael & Sherri Bennett
Dr. Kevin & Katelyn Berg
The Dan Brizee Family
Brady & Alexes Brown: In memory of Boston Brown
Linda E Brugger
Ryan & Shawnee Burt
Brent & Donna Bywater
Dave & Mary Crawford
Adam & Kristin Croissant
Dr. Michael & Chenele Dixon
Sharon Dowdle: In memory of my Mother
Dr. Paul & Alisha Dunlavy
Emily Egeler: In memory of Natalie-Claire Woods Lyda
The children’s museum industry is very collaborative in nature. We feel very fortunate to have several wonderful community schools, libraries and organizations we can collaborate with to provide interactive, hands-on learning for the children of the Magic Valley. Our core values include in all things, we will maintain a spirit of collaboration within our community as we place children at the center of our thoughts and actions.
These are some of our community collaborators:
Area Elementary Schools (STEAM mobile outreach)
Refugee Center (After School Tutoring Program)
Community Council of Idaho (Migrant Head Start Program)
Imagine a community gathering place that builds wonder and curiosity. Together, we’re building a place that inspires children to create, dream, explore, and discover with their families. If you can imagine it, we can achieve it! We are an emerging hands-on facility in Twin Falls, Idaho. Our mission is to engage children of all ages and abilities in learning through imaginative play and discovery. The Children’s Museum of the Magic Valley (CMMV) is the only organization in an eight county area that will provide this unique learning experience designed specifically for children and their caregivers.
Magic Valley in Numbers
Over 15,500 children under the age of 5
18,000 students attending public elementary schools
With approximately 200,000 residents, it is the 4th fastest growing micropolitan region in the United States
Pre-COVID-19, 57.5% students in South Central Idaho classified as economically disadvantaged
Museums Make a Difference
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, children who visit museums achieve higher scores in reading, mathematics, and science. Museums add excitement and a hands-on experience to learning. Hands-on is minds-on! We anticipate welcoming over 52,000 visitors each year.
Children Learn Naturally Through Play, Play-based learning:
Enhances academic and developmental learning outcomes
Promotes focus and concentration
Encourages children to engage in higher-level thinking processes such as inquiry, analysis, evaluation, and creativity
Supports positive attitudes to learning
CMMV will anchor Twin Falls as a family-friendly destination, draw visitors, create jobs, and attract new residents and businesses.
Nationally in 2016, children’s museums contributed $5.5 billion to U.S. economic activity
Supported 57,281 jobs
Contributed $2 billion in salaries
Tourists to communities with museums linger longer by 53% and spend 36% more during their stay
87% of Americans believe cultural amenities are essential
Children who attend children’s museums become adults who attend museums; children’s museums help establish patterns of lifelong learning
The educational wonder of the children’s museum is open to all Magic Valley families. We look forward to participating in the national Museums for All program, which provides subsidized memberships to qualifying families. Children may have the exciting opportunity to have the museum visit their school for a special program or even take a field trip and spend the school day inside the museum. But we don’t want the educational fun to stop there!
The Museums for All program goes a step further, allowing children to share the museum experience with their caregivers as often as they wish. We cherish this opportunity that allows children to share the excitement of being in the museum with the people they value most–exploring and having fun right alongside them.
We hope that by having a reduced price admission option, we can create a love of museums for everyone and that cost won’t be a barrier. As children build lifelong museum habits, their world will grow bigger, and they will see a future full of potential and adventure!
Our community is fortunate to offer many learning opportunities in the form of public library programming, College of Southern Idaho curriculum, a variety of extracurricular activities, and the countless ways dedicated school teachers go the extra mile for their students. We cannot wait to add our programs and exhibits to the educational amenities in the area! We are proudly looking forward to being members of the Museums for All program and participating in this nationwide initiative to allow more access to museums and education.
We are proud of the STEM outreach program we have designed specifically for our local elementary schools. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Our goal is to provide hands-on learning as students imagine, create, dream, explore, and discover together at STEM Family Nights. Through many generous grants from Idaho STEM Action Center, the DART Foundation, Pioneer Federal Credit Union, and Twin Falls Rotary Club, we created a rich educational learning experience with eight mobile exhibits.
The exhibits showcased were new experiences for children that cannot always be easily replicated at home or school. A children’s museum has the unique ability to bring experiences at a larger than life scale! STEM nights allowed us to give the community a small taste of what the museum will be.
Get Creative with Coding – Build hands-on, screen-free coding skills with our OzoBots, Code & Go Mouse Bots, and KIBO. Debug plastic bugs from a “code,” Ask about our favorite edible activity that gets families moving, laughing and learning about coding. Sponsored by Idaho STEM Action Center
Literacy Connection – We love to connect literacy & STEM! Can you construct a home for the three little pigs that can withstand the puff of the Big Bad Wolf? Try squeezing the entire alphabet onto your own colorful block tree before it falls down…Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom!
What Can You Rigamajig? – Powered by your brain, this collection of wooden planks, wheels, pulleys, nuts, bolts and rope gives you the tools to build whatever you can dream up! Think three dimensionally, create physically, and work collaboratively. Sponsored by DART Foundation
Marvelous Magnets – Explore magnetism through investigations with magnetic/non-magnetic materials, build with over 700 Magnatiles, see the pull of the magnetic field with captivating Ferrofluid, explore with Hematite stones. Sponsored by Idaho STEM Action Center
Making Waves – Dive into the science of sound waves as you complete five vibration investigations, make music, and capture and evaluate waveforms with two of our Vernier GoDirect Sound Sensors.
Imagination Playground – 105 Imagination Playground blocks bring the engineering benefits of block play on a larger-than-life scale. Includes bricks, cylinders, chutes, channels and more. (Requires 250 sqft of space) Sponsored by Twin Falls Rotary Club
Your Body: Inside Out – Learn about hearts and blood types through hands-on experiments, Orb Water Bead “Blood Cell” sensory bins, and models. Take a peek inside your body with our virtual reality t-shirt.
Bank & Farmer’s Market (add on) – Our Bank & Farmer’s Market is a hands-on role-playing exhibit that helps kids understand the principles of earning, spending, and saving money. Sponsored by Pioneer Federal Credit Union
We enjoyed setting up our STEM Family Night events at Gooding Elementary, Declo Elementary, Bickel Elementary, Lincoln Elementary, Kimberly Elementary, and Sawtooth Elementary. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, our last 3 events at Hollister Elementary, Jefferson Elementary and Rock Creek Elementary were postponed. We gave our program a COVID-19 revamp and will test out an outdoor, social-but-distant version this fall.
As you can see from the pictures, the children didn’t need to be told twice to get to work doing what kids do best!
What a fun day walking the St. Patrick’s Day Parade! After the parade, we had an informational table with a rainbow hands-on activity for families to explore and learn more about our efforts to build a children’s museum.
Our first fundraiser was sponsored by Magic Valley Mall in February 2019. This was the first time most families had heard about CMMV, and we could feel their excitement at the prospect of having a children’s museum right here in our community! Kids of all ages got to work playing, creating, and learning
.
Community member Tara Rueda donated a huge supply of tumbled glass, and kids got to work designing “sea glass” mosaics. Kids could also paint watercolor valentine cards, play with STEM toys, and learn about how the human heart functions. The most popular part may have been getting to see and touch real pig and cow hearts! prize basket.
Thanks to Falls Brand & Scarrow Meat for the pig and cow hearts. Many thanks to Magic Valley Mall for allowing us to set up in an empty storefront and to Rocky Mountain Flooring for carpet squares to make it more inviting. Thanks to Twin Falls Chevrolet for filling our balloons with helium and Jensen Jewelers for donating to our raffle
