museum fun

Today we went to an animal program organized by the local homeschooling cooperative at a nearby (well, relatively speaking) children's museum. We'd not been to the museum before, though I can't say exactly why -- just hadn't gotten around to it yet, I guess. But I'm SO glad we went today. The program was on vertibrates (animals with backbones) and included a lot of hands-on materials, including live animals, so in consideration of not scaring any of them, I didn't take any photos of the actual presentation. But the kids loved it and spent quite a bit of time in the live animal exhibit area of the museum afterwards (seen in this first photo).
There are several rooms in the museum, one is set up like a barn and barnyard and there are lots of farm activities to participate in. One of the first things my kids were attracted to was the pulley system set up to move vegetables, eggs, etc from the floor of the barn up to the loft. There was a really cute "farm stand" with lots of plastic produce to pretend selling and buying.

There was also this great plastic cow, with a "realistic" milking system. Zoo Boy is trying out his milking skills here in this photo. Actually, he initially squatted down to milk, but on seeing him, J ran and fetched him this stool, saying "don't you know, you need a milking stool?" to which Zoo Boy exclaimed "oh yeah, I forgot". My farm boys!


By far their favorite part of the visit was the large variety of dress-up costumes available, representing just about every farm animal and farm person imaginable. Here J dresses up as a chicken while visiting the "chicken coop" area (where kids are encouraged to reach under the stuffed animal hens to look for eggs).


Here Zoo Boy is dressed up like a duck.

The museum was a huge hit with the kids, and I basically had to drag them out of there hours after the program we had gone to was over. Great spaces and materials for imaginative play, not only in the "farm" room, but in a room that focuses on Transportation as well. I bought a family membership on the way out -- I'm always looking for good places to visit on a rainy day, and this one is going at the top of my list!