Tune in every Tuesday at 2 pm on Instagram Live as ROM Kids Coordinator and Camp Director Kiron Mukherjee combines his passion for children’s education with storytelling to bring to life science, history and art for you and your loved ones in the comfort of your own home. Kiron will share activities, easy at-home crafts, behind the scenes anecdotes and fun facts—all connected to the ROM collections.
This time on the ROMKids Show we travel to the west coast of Canada and learn about the long history of the ROM’s tree cookie! We’ll also meet with Indigenous Outreach and Learning Coordinator J’net AyAyQwaYakSheelth to talk about the importance and power of speaking the truth. Finally, we’ll make our own tree cookies to tell the story of our lives using our hands!
MATERIALS:
- paper
- markers
1. This is an easy activity, but if you take your time with it, and do it carefully, you can come out with a really thoughtful project! Take your hand and draw an outline around it. Complete the outline where your arm starts so you have a whole handprint.
2. For each year of your life, do a smaller version of your hand inside your traced hand.
3. Once all one, label the rings. The ring closest to the center is your first. Just like the rings in a tree, each ring will represent one year of your life, radiating out from the center. Write down important things that happened during those years? When did you learn to swim? First vacation? First time going to a museum? You could ask the adults in your household to fill in the steps for your early years that you don’t remember. Now instead of a tree cookie, you have a YOU cookie!
As the ROMKids Coordinator & Camp Director, Kiron is the public face of the Royal Ontario Museum’s family and children’s programs. Kiron started volunteering at the ROM at age 14 and has never looked back. Though he majored in history at York University, Kiron also considers his early years as a ROMKids camper to be a highly formative part of his education. Now, he strives to provide engaging and educational kids’ programming so that future generations can look back on their ROM experiences as fondly as he has.
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