Value Spotlight: Play
Value Spotlight: Play
CMTM has 5 core values: Belonging, Play, Community, Curiosity, and Trust.
Each month, we are shining a light on a different core value and the how and why behind its significance to our organization and the people that make up our CMTM community.
This month, we are taking a closer look at Play.
EMBRACE Play
How do we define play as a value?
We embrace the power of play to build resilience, spark creativity, and ignite a child’s imagination. Play inspires our work, our physical spaces, our storytelling, and our learning experiences.
Why play?
Play is foundational to building imagination, sparking creativity, enhancing coping skills, reinforcing flexibility, and shaping the overall well-being of a child.
By curating experiences that encourage hands-on experiential learning and interactions with others, children can try new things, see cause and effect, and be inspired to explore, improving their cognitive understanding of the world and others.
By learning through play, we promote healthy, happy, and confident children who become healthy, happy, and confident adults.
Play within our strategic plan + the path ahead
At the Children's Museum & Theatre of Maine (CMTM), play is fundamental to the learning and development of children. Recognizing that play is the purest form of learning, CMTM's exhibits are designed to promote play-based learning experiences. Through interactive exhibits, afterschool programming, MakerSpace programs, and STEM activities, children are encouraged to engage in imaginative activities that foster critical thinking skills and creativity. By experiencing the world through play, children develop the ability to view situations from multiple perspectives, enhancing their problem-solving abilities and cognitive development.
Over the coming years, CMTM plans to expand its early childhood resources for teachers and families. These resources will center on learning through play, providing educators and caregivers with tools and strategies to integrate play-based learning into everyday routines. By doing so, CMTM aims to create a supportive environment where play is not only encouraged but seen as essential to a child's educational journey, ensuring that all children have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive through the power of play.
We are excited to take this journey to play with you in the coming months and years!
About CMTM’s Strategic Plan
In the fall of 2022, CMTM embarked on a year-long journey to realign our mission, values, and priorities with our new building and begin to paint the picture of who we want to be for ourselves, our visitors, and the community - today and tomorrow. The CMTM board and entire staff devoted themselves to two retreats—one in the summer and one in the fall—as well as hundreds of hours of discussion and work groups to contemplate and define our priorities and plan for the future. We also sought community feedback through focus groups comprised of children, caregivers, corporate and foundational partners, educators, advisory councils, and community leaders. Additionally, a community-wide survey garnered more than 300 responses.
Drawing upon insights from all these stakeholders and guided by our strategic planning team at Reflector Lab, our partners in this process, CMTM crafted a revised mission statement, values, and strategic plan to steer our path for the next three years and beyond.
Our refined mission states:
“ At the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine, we set the stage for every child to imagine and learn through play.”