Agency Details:

Habitot Children's Museum

For over eleven years, Habitot Children's Museum has been opening doors to early learning for tens of thousands of young children, 0-5. With award-winning hands-on exhibits, creative art programs, and engaging public events and performances experienced by over 850,000 people, the workings of the larger world are revealed to young children. Such stimulating experiences are critical in the first five years of life because as many as one in three children enters kindergarten behind and never catches up. With comprehensive parenting education programs and support groups for parents and caregivers, Habitot helps adults understand early childhood development and parenting skills that facilitate learning, social development and confidence in young children. Habitot's mission is to help parents and caregivers raise curious, creative and confident children.

Description:
Habitot Children's Museum is the East Bay's best place for young children. Sized and scaled for young hands and bodies, the museum and its exhibits provide a safe, interactive space perfectly tailored for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Habitot offers a drop-in art studio, children's classes, parenting workshops and support groups, preschool field trip and agency group visits, birthday parties, a Toy Lending Library, and a Family Resource Center. Habitot was voted "Best Museum for Little Kids" in the Bay Area in 2008 by Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect.com and is one of the nominees for "Best Museum" in 2009.

• No other Bay Area community institution exists exclusively to meet the needs and interests of infants, toddlers and preschoolers.
  
  
• 180,000 children under 6 years of age live in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties
  
  
• Development in the early years depends on young children's exposure to novel and stimulating experiences, caring, engaged adults, and safe and nurturing communities
  
  
• Reductions in community services, declining public school budgets, diminished family resources, parents working two jobs and long hours, prevalence of overextended preschools, parents' reliance on inexperienced child care providers and a host of other societal concerns create a need for a community institution that supports early childhood learning, parenting success and community connection.

Habitot benefits young children...with a year round program of interactive exhibits, hands-on art programs, educational classes, multicultural events and performances, a Child Safety Campaign, a year-round early literacy component, a toy lending library, and daily opportunities for social interaction with other children and with their parents and care givers.
Habitot builds better families...with parenting classes, parent support groups, a family resource center, educational signage, parent-to-parent brochures, Family Art Days, and countless opportunities for informal connections between diverse families.

Habitot engages the community...with a youth employment program that hires financial aid college students and at-risk high school students, employs local artists and performers, hires sign makers, builders, and other trades people, employs free-lance music and art teachers, places community service volunteers, and engages seniors in parent-to-parent programs.

Habitot benefits the schools...with teacher training programs and direct services to public school districts and both public and private preschools with T.E.A.C.H. Reach (professional development series) and Art Reach which brings art activities to children in the community who rarely get to do art. The area's elementary schools benefit greatly from enrolling children of museum members and frequent visitors arrive at kindergarten with social and intellectual skills and are ready to learn.

Habitot revitalizes downtown...with 80,000 visitors every year, bringing families pushing strollers to the downtown area, who in turn support local merchants and restaurants, and humanize the face of our city.

Habitot is inclusive...with a family and community partnerships program that brings over 8,000 low income and special needs visitors to the museum... homeless children who rarely have playful childhood experiences, teen parents who need to learn the art of parenting, disabled children who join the mainstream of other children, immigrant families who make their first American friends here. These families diversify and broaden Habitot's audience, breaking down social and class barriers, and make it possible for families from all walks of life to find common ground in the raising of young children.

History:
Habitot Children's Museum was founded by parents and educators in 1992 to meet the unique needs and interests of infants, toddlers and preschoolers in a safe and appropriate community setting. Habitot opened its first facility in downtown Berkeley in 1998, after six years of community outreach and fundraising and a traveling exhibit tour throughout the East Bay.

In eleven years, Habitot Children's Museum has become the most popular and award-winning children's museum in the East Bay, and has grown from an emerging museum to an established organization with a budget of $800,000 and 60-80,000 visitors a year.

Contact people:

Gina M. Moreland, Executive Director, (phone), (email) Lauren Levin, Development Associate, (phone), (email) Kalie Sacco, Volunteer Manager, (phone), (email)

Office fax number: (510) 647-1110

Address:

2065 Kittredge St. Berkeley, CA 94707 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.habitot.org

Directions:

Habitot is at the corner of Kittredge & Shattuck, in the heart of downtown Berkeley. Close to major freeways and public transportation.   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: Downtown Berkeley BART,   Walk distance (in minutes): 5   Nearest Bus Stop: 43,51,40,15,9,7

Last updated on January 21, 2010