Science Museum

Just sharing a few pictures from our latest trip to the science museum.  We wanted to take the kids to see the Sue dinosaur exhibit.  When the older kids were younger, we visited this exhibit at a science museum in Mississippi. But that was quite a while ago and their Dad was not with us at the time.  One of my goals as a parent is to make an intentional effort to take the younger kids to do the things we did with the older children whenever possible. Not necessarily the same exact trips and experiences but rather making an effort to give them similar experiences even though it's not always fun as the adult to keep repeating the same things over and over again.  Just because you remember doing something with your kids when the oldest one was 4 does not mean that any of your kids remember it. So we went to check out the exhibit again.

We also spent quite a lot of time with the Keva planks. I'll admit that I have heard friends sing the praises of these toys before but I never quite understood the appeal. I mean, what exactly is so exciting about a bunch of wooden blocks and how is that any different than the myriad of other blocks we have already. But what I saw was every single child from 2 to 15 actively engaged in building something with these blocks.  Gabe actually sat still for at least 30 minutes.  It was amazing.  And somehow the simplicity of the blocks gave rise to quite a bit of creativity.

Yes, we also visited the rock wall and the sand table and the jungle gym climbing tunnels.  And a few of the kids got to take their first ride on the simulator since Dad was with us this time. He is rarely able to visit museums with us which means that kids under a certain age usually miss out on experiences that require an adult to go with them.  I'm pretty often pregnant and unable to do such things so Abby and Gabe were thrilled to have the chance to ride the simulator this time.