India’s 1st educational play space opens in Gurgaon

India’s 1st educational play space opens in Gurgaon

Stellar Children’s Museum offers an interactive learning experience for kids with their families

New Delhi, October 14, 2012

India’s first ever Children’s Museum has opened its door at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon. Located on the 2nd floor, Stellar Children’s Museum boasts over 10,000 sq.ft. of fun and learning and offers a welcoming, safe, imaginative, child-centered learning environment; with over 50 interactive exhibits, a theatre, a café and a store.

Designed by Children Museum experts from Chicago and modeled on some of the best Children’s Museums around the world, Stellar Children’s Museum is packed with interactive play areas. There are seven main galleries - Invent It, Build It, Discover It, Explore It, Live It, Create It and Splash It. Each gallery has many hands-on activities to ignite the imagination and curiosity of children. These galleries engage children in various learning concepts through arts & crafts, science and experiments, design and construction, geography and culture, pretend play and social skills and adventure & investigation. The children at play are supervised by experienced “Educators” who have knowledge of the curriculum taught at schools and have an understanding of the emotional and academic aptitude of children aged 0-8 years.

The world over, Children’s Museums are places where children learn through play and exploration in environments designed just for them. The exhibits are designed around learning concepts that are absorbed by children through unstructured play.

Stellar Children’s Museum also has a theater space which will host multiple activities, like workshops on music, dramatics, story-telling and “Mom & Me” programs for toddlers and parents. The Museum will also reach out to schools in the NCR region to invite students from Nursery to Grade 3 to visit the Museum as part of school trips.

Stellar Children’s Museum is the brainchild of a young urban couple, Akshay Sethi and Anjana Menon. After living in the US for several years, Akshay Sethi and Anjana Menon came back to India and found a paucity of edu-recreational facilities for their children. They found a similar sentiment being shared by parents of other young children too.

Speaking on opening the Museum, Akshay Sethi, Managing Director, Stellar Children’s Museum said, “As parents of five year old twins we realized that there’s very little the city had to offer where we could take our kids to on a regular basis. We have experienced several Children’s Museums in the US and saw how our kids absolutely loved playing there and we felt happy because they were also learning new concepts. We were surprised that while there are over 300 Children’s Museums in the world, there was not a single one in India. Realizing there was significant gap in the space for educational play, we decided to bring the concept to India.”

Stellar Children’s Museum offers a safe, confined indoor area where the parents can sit back and relax as their children play and explore the museum. Anjana Menon, Museum Director, Stellar Children’s Museum adds, “Children’s Museums abroad actually help build a community in the city they serve. Parents living in the vicinity of a Children’s Museum typically take up annual memberships such that a trip to the Children’s Museum with their children also becomes a social outing where they can meet like-minded people in a similar age group. Keeping this in mind we offer annual membership plans with special benefits to our members, such as members-only visiting hours, and advance bookings for workshops.”

Stellar Children’s Museum also offers opportunities for hosting events such as birthday parties. With over 50 interactive exhibits, a theatre and a café, it is a truly unique and exciting venue for a memorable private, or corporate gathering. The museum is adaptable to accommodate meetings, conferences, lectures, staff appreciations, focus groups, fundraisers, team building exercises and family reunions.

The concept design has been worked upon in partnership with RedBox Workshop, a leading design, concept, fabrication and operational team of experts who specialize in children’s museums. Anjana Menon adds, “We wanted to make sure we give a truly international experience to our children and leveraged the experience of Redbox that has specialized in designing Children’s Museum for over 20 years. We are also members of the international Association of Children’s Museums which provides best-practices on how to “manage the play” at such Museums. As is quite common with Children’s Museums abroad, we have also started corporate partnership programs with brands such as Dettol, to promote concepts around healthier bodies and better minds.”

Best suited to: 2-8 year old children
Opening Hours: Open 10.00 am to 8.00 pm, seven days a week
Admission fee: Rs.600/- includes one child and one accompanying adult
Annual membership fee: Rs.15,000/- for an annual membership for a family of four
Location: 2nd Floor, Gate No. 4, Ambience Mall, Gurgaon;
Contact: Ph: 0124-4665373 or Email: info@stellarmuseum.com
Website: www.stellarchildrensmuseum.com; www.facebook.com/StellarChildrensMuseum;

About Stellar Children's Museum:

Stellar Children’s Museum is the first of its kind in India, modeled after some of the best Children's Museums in the world. The extremely interactive and play-based exhibits offer a safe and interesting place for children to play, learn and discover the world around them in exciting ways. Designed by experts from Chicago, RedBox Workshop, the Museum boasts of over 10,000 sq.ft. of fun and learning.

It is the perfect solution for parents who want their children to be entertained throughout the year. The Museum has a number of role-play and collaborative work exhibits that also give the child valuable learning opportunities.

The Stellar Children's Museum is also a member of the International Association of Children's Museums. The Museum has 7 galleries, each offering a different look at the world around us to ignite imagination and curiosity in the minds of the children.

About Stellar Group (http://stellargroupindia.com/):

The Stellar Group is actively engaged in development of residential, industrial & institutional projects in the National Capital Region of Delhi. The group has business interests in Real Estate Development and Construction, Hospitality, Banking and Information Technology. The organization is renowned for developing quality projects with strict adherence to time bound delivery and completion schedules.

About RedBox Workshop (http://www.redboxworkshop.com/):

Based in Chicago, RedBox Workshop is a full-service studio offering design, fabrication and project management services. The studio specialises in creative, hands-on environments and exhibits focusing on children and their families, as well as interactive scenery and unique exhibits for a variety of markets. RedBox Workshop has been behind the success of numerous similar concepts in the US such as Chicago Children’s Museum, Lincoln Park Zoo, Louisville Science Center, Mid Michigan Children’s Museum – among others!