A guide to trails

It came to my attention through the GEM email list that apparently there are a lot of people out there who want some advice, or maybe just examples of good practice, for writing trails for their venues. It also seemed that there was little training on the matter, and little out there to read about it.

This seems a great missed opportunity to me; are there any museums or natural sites or anything like that out there these days that don't have trails for children and/or adults?

I put together an awful lot of trails, and I've learnt a lot about them in the years I've been writing them. So, I thought I'd put together some free general advice about them, from my point of view. I'd also like to highlight some great examples that I've seen around and about, but I'll do that in some separate posts.

So, here goes. I hope it's helpful!

Trails: Some Hints and Tips

In no particular order...

Be clear about your aims
- Before you start writing anything, you should decide what you want to achieve with your trail. Are you trying to highlight certain items in your collection? Promote numeracy skills? Stimulate creativity? Teach people about the Victorians? You'll probably find that your trail manages to do more than one thing when you've finished, but it's important before you start anything that you know what one key thing you really want it to do.

Themes are fantastic
- No matter what you want your trail to do, coming up with ways to do it always seems easier if your trail has a theme. Sometimes, this might be governed by an event or exhibition that you have on at the time. Other times, you could pick a theme based on the time of the year (Christmas, Easter, Summer) or on something completely random (pirates, fairies, animals).

What media you will use?
-  Knowing how your final trail will be produced should influence your design. If it's going to be photocopied to be given out, then you don't really want it to be full of colourful pictures; they won't copy properly and it'll just look amateurish. Equally, if you're producing something that'll be professionally printed, you really want to make the most of colours and images. Think about size too; you'll need text to be readable, so if it's a small booklet that might limit the amount that you can write in it.

Think about your audience
- It's not enough to just say 'this is a trail for children'. Is it going to be done by one child at a time, or a family together? Is it going to be done by toddlers, or 5-7 year olds, or 12 year olds, or teenagers? Or all of the above? It's not just the content that you'll need to think of here, but also the presentation, and the tasks that you ask them to do. Very young children love to spot things and tick them off lists. Older children will quickly get bored of that, and probably need something a little more varied and goal-orientated to keep them interested.

How long will your trail be?
- Trails don't have to be long to be effective. Especially with younger children, four or five points might be enough for them to have had a good time, learnt something, and not yet got bored. Even with older children, nine or ten points is usually enough. Generally, the more you're asking visitors to do at each trail point, the less points you need on the trail. Think more about the overall time you're expecting visitors to spend on the trail.

Tasks and activities
- Spotting things and ticking them off and following clues from point to point doesn't have to be all there is to trails. Counting is a good step up from just noticing, and gets children to engage a little more deeply. You could ask questions about information on panels, or get children to draw pictures of things they see, either copying from real life or from their imagination. Multiple choice questions are always well received. Sometimes you can provide relevant activities, such as providing semaphore flags to have a go at sending a message with, or asking them to decode a message written in knots on a piece of string. Whatever your theme is, think creatively about associated tasks and activities for it.

How else can you engage your audience?
- It doesn't have to be all about the things you write on a sheet. There are some excellent 'explorer' trails I've seen where families get a whole bag full of exciting toys to play with. Use the binoculars to look at something, or the magnifying glass. Measure something with the ruler... and so on. But if you haven't got the budget for props, that doesn't mean you're limited to writing answers. Get visitors to touch things, to say what they can smell, or to close their eyes and listen.


I hope that's been a helpful overview! I'll pick out some good examples from places I've been and things I've done in other posts.

From the mouths of children: Chimneys

A very short post today. This little gem comes courtesy of one of our teaching staff.

Last week, during a teaching session at the museum, our teacher asked the class why they thought one of our buildings has two chimneys on it. Straight away, a little hand shot into the air.

"So that Santa can come down one of them!"

It's good to see what's important in a child's mind.

Munny munny munny

I found these cute little toys completely by accident, and immediately fell in love with them. They're billed as a creative toy for children and adults, and I have to say I can really see the attraction. It's called a Munny.

The idea is that you can colour with crayons, sharpies, marker pens, paint on them, stick things to them, carve into them... really, do whatever you like to them to create some rather awesome looking models.

There are some pretty amazing Munny's out there, which I daresay were adult creations, but the creative approach that they promote works no matter how old you are. They even do packs for schools. Who can argue with a slogan like "you can do anything you want!"?

Some favourites... yes, I'm showing off some of my geekiness here I know...

Little blank canvases of toys that promote creativity. Love it!

Ten things you can do with a piece of paper

I'm of the firm opinion that you can make pretty much anything out of paper, given enough time and rolls of sellotape. Over the years, we've tried to do just that at our events and activity days, always coming up with new uses for the scrap paper that would otherwise get thrown away.

Of course, the best thing about paper? It's recyclable! So once you're finished crafting, you can just pop into into the recycle bin.

So, I thought today I'd share ten things you can make with a piece of paper (or two or three). These are just some of the most fun or the most useful; I'd love to hear what papery creations other people have made!

Especially for today, I've even included some pictures of some of these papery crafts. I think they're all pretty self explanatory really, but if you want any making instructions for anything just drop me a line and I'll be happy to share!

1. A paper aeroplane

It doesn't matter how old you are, a paper aeroplane is always a winner. As you'll see from the picture here, we've made some pretty big paper aeroplanes, some just as large as the children we made them with! These uber-planes don't fly all that well, to be honest, but the kids absolutely love them anyway.

2. Hats

You can make pretty much any type of hat you like from a sheet or two of paper. The usual suspects for us include witch and wizard hats, pirate hats and princess hats, but the only limit is usually the child's imagination (which you'll know is pretty limit-less).

3. Masks
We've made masks on pretty much every theme you can think of. Animals, transport, and yes, aliens. The great thing about masks is that they're so simple, and yet you can spend hours and hours getting it just how you want it. When I say "you", let's pretend we mean the children and not the staff, ok?

4. Paper towers

These are great fun for a construction-based event, and best run as a team activity. I love how competitive parents and grandparents get when they're trying to see who can build the biggest tower.

5. Snowflakes

Great for winter or weather events, and they make fantastic Christmas decorations. The look on a child's face the very first time they see one opened up is priceless.

6. Musical instruments

We've made horns, wobble boards (thanks Rolf), shakers, drums, rainmakers and more from rolls and balls of paper. It's surprising how much extra noise children can make with a few sheets of paper, really.

7. Phoenix Feathers

Or indeed, any feathers at all. The phoenix himself is made of cardboard cut to shape and stuck together, then covered in toilet paper and spray painted red. He's a fantastic model, and over a year later he's still hanging in the store cupboard.

8. Secret message envelopes

These are great fun. We make them from greaseproof paper because it comes on a roll which is nice and convenient, but you could make them from normal paper too. A couple of folds in the right places and you have an envelope with a secret compartment! What could be better for a budding spy?

9. Models

Because paper is so fantastically easy to fold, you can make nets of pretty much any shape out of them. We built an entire village onto a hand-drawn paper map to demonstrate the ideas of town planning, including buildings which families made out of rectangles and triangular prisms. We had some remarkably inventive building designs; as well as the the mini museum you can see below we had houses, supermarkets, a school, a church and a cathedral.

10. A bin!

Yes, we've made bins out of paper before. These are excellent if you know you're doing a paper craft that has a lot of paper off cuts. Just make sure that you don't put any non-paper in the bin, and you can put the entire thing straight into the recycling when you're done. How's that for efficient?

Flat as a pancake

In honour of Pancake Day, I thought I'd share with you a couple of things that I've done over the years that didn't really go as planned. I'm a firm believer that any learning experience is a valuable one, just as any pancake tastes good even if it does end up a bit misshapen when you try and flip it in the frying pan.

Lesson #1: A boat isn't any fun unless you can race it (unless it's a pirate ship)

You've already read my experience with the coracles I'm sure, but that's not the only time we've had fun and games with boats. Last summer, we were making small bowl boats from polystyrene bowls as part of a transport event. I'd expected it to be really popular, and a good chance to talk about how wind on the sails makes the boat move. To my surprise, no-one seemed particularly interested. I'd got a little paddling pool out for them to try and float the boats on (so they could blow on the sails and move the ship) but the responses I got were very much of the "Are we going to race them? No? Oh. I won't bother then." type.

Eventually, I managed to persuade a little boy to have a go. He drew a big skull and crossbones on the flag, and was very proud of his little pirate ship. After that, I suddenly had a lot of requests to make 'pirate ships', and the small paddling pool (now one of the seven seas, of course) was immediately in great demand. Somehow, just by having that touch of fantasy, the same activity suddenly became a lot more attractive.

Lesson #2: Demand will sometimes be greater than supply

Conversely, sometimes you're a victim of your own success. You come up with an idea so fantastic that everyone wants to have a go. This can be a problem if the activity has limited resources, or is time dependant. Over the years I've gotten much better at predicting what the 'most-wanted' will be, but every now and then you'll still find something catches you out and proves to be madly more popular than you expected.

Most bizarre popular activity? A game called 'feed the ostrich' where you threw beanbags into buckets. I've still no idea why (I asked, but no-one seemed able to tell me why they liked it so much) but everyone wanted a go.



Have you got some flat-pancake-lessons you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them!

What would you like to make?

Regardless of the event that we're running, I usually try and find the chance to ask children if there's anything else they'd like to make or do, aside from whatever we might be making and doing for the event already. I find this really useful, because there are definitely some trends that come out of this which I can use for event activity planning for the future.

In no particular order, I thought I'd share the top three things that kids tell me they'd like to make, and some of the reasons they give for wanting them. Some are funny, and some are downright adorable. I hope they'll all be useful in some way.

A sword

I said 'not in any particular order' but really this is what I get requests for more than anything else. As a consequence, I've developed a few different sword making methods that suit a variety of kid's ages and abilities, and the materials I've got at the time. My favourite involves cardboard, aluminium foil and a paper plate. If you want the 'recipe' let me know, I'm happy to share. Some of my favourite reasons for why they wanted a sword include; 'because I can't be a Knight without one!', 'I want to fight my sister' and 'because Johnny Depp has one'.

A hat

I've said it before, I know; kids love to wear what they've made. Usually, they're quite specific about the sort of hat they'd like, and it's not always relevant to the event going on. We've made a princess hat at a pirate event, and a crown at an animal event. In response to this, I've usually got a stack of paper bands on which they can stick anything they've made at most events. Instant hat, no planning required.

A bag

Something else that you can wear. My favourite reason for a child wanting a bag was 'well where else am I supposed to put my dinosaur?'. Quite.


And just for fun, here's a few other random things I've been asked for...
- "Can I make a mouse so it can go live in the windmill?"
- "I'd like to make the smallest elephant in the world."
- "Well if he gets a sword, I want a sheild. A really big one. Bigger than me. Please."
- "A catapult! So we can attack the castle." - this becomes less understandable when it was a Victorian event and you know that we have no castle at our museum...

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Do share if you've had any frequent or odd requests from any of your visitors!

A risky business

Risk assessments aren't exactly my friend, I'll be honest about that. More like the awkward relative who comes to every family function, and you can't not invite them, because everyone expects you to, though really you'd all be happier if they didn't come, because they're boring and suck all the fun out of everything.

Oh they're useful, I can't deny that. Anything that forces you to think critically about the risks involved in what you're planning can't be a totally negative thing. But I still don't like them very much, and I think that's probably because at least 10% of the ideas I come up with get scratched at the drawing-board stage because the idea of trying to mitigate them in a risk assessment seems like far too big a headache.

Yesterday, I was introduced to the idea of a risk benefit analysis. This sounds fascinating to me, and it's basically based on the idea that children need risk to develop effectively, and so activities should be assessed based on the potential positives and negatives of the risk. Where the positives outweight the negatives, it's actually ok to go ahead and run the activity, even if there is some small chance that something might go wrong.

This strikes me as a very logical and level headed approach, and there's a part of me wondering exactly why I never thought about it that way before.

In some ways, I guess we've been doing it to some extent already. I know when I run a pond dipping day that there is a remote chance that a child might fall in. They might catch some pond illness, they might even get seriously ill. In the most extreme circumstance, they could die. But we do our best to make sure that none of that happens; our pond isn't deep, we impress on the children the importance of not eating or drinking anything that comes out of the pond, we encourage them to wash their hands when they've finished, we have life saving equipment nearby and we always have lots of staff on hand ready and willing (though probably not pleased) to jump into the pond after any children that do fall in.

If risk is about teaching children what they shouldn't be doing, then really we should be using our risk assessments as a chance to tell the kids why they shouldn't be drinking the pondwater. Explain to the children what risk they're avoiding, so that they learn they shouldn't put any pond water into their mouths, not just the water from our pond. In effect, the risks can be a benefit to the children without being a hazard.

If you're interested in this idea of the benefits of risk, then I recommend you have a read of Tim Gill's 'Nothing Ventured'. It's based on activites in the outdoors, but it raises some interesting ideas that I think apply to anything we do.

Leading by example

This is another thought from the SLIME conference I was at a few weeks ago down at Brooklands Museum.

Someone mentioned there that they've found that people are a lot more likely to do something if someone has already done it. This makes sense to me; apart from the select few (I'm thinking budding Christopher Columbuses and so on), most people don't like to be the first to do something. Most people prefer to have someone else test the waters, be the guinea pig and smooth out all the potential creases before they get to having a go. Once they've seen that it's an achievable goal (and that they're not going to get hurt, or splashed with water, or humiliated, or whatever) then they'll find it a lot easier to pluck up the courage to have a go themselves.

I rely on this principle a lot. We always have examples of craft items around when we're doing a make-and-take activity, so that kids can better visualise the end result of their potential efforts. It works well in building their confidence before they even start, and often acts as a springboard for them to create bigger and better models than the ones we put out for show; they're very rarely just carbon copies.

What left me thinking though, was that this same person suggested that perhaps we should be telling visitors that others have already Boldy Gone before them even when actually, they haven't.

Now, this idea I'm not sure whether I like or not. If it builds confidence enough to have a go at something, is it right to say that it's been done before? Our models are made by myself and my staff usually, rather than other children. Is that a cheat, or is that fine as long as I'm honest about who has done the making? I'm fairly sure that I draw the line when this 'fake achievement' is no longer promoting a sense of creative confidence. If you're making up reviews of products to sell something, then I'm not in favour of that. Encourgaging people to fulfil their potential is one thing. Manipulating them out of money is another. But then, maybe that's why I'm in education and not advertising...

I'd be interested to hear other views about this, so do drop a line in the comments or through twitter if you've got a point of view for discussion.