friday museum fun

Our Friday excursion this week took us to the local children's museum, where we hooked up with several of our homeschooling friends. Not a very exotic location, given that we spend at least one day a week there! But it's always a popular destination with the kids, and made up for their disappointment of our corn maze trip being rained out. (We'll try to hit the corn maze another day.)

As per our other recent visits, Zoo Boy spent the bulk of his time in the new Long Island Sound exhibit. Here he's checking out the different types of shore birds and making them do their calls.

J found a cozy reading nook in a room underneath the exhibit that is stocked with nautical and ocean-related books, and settled in for an hour or so of reading.



Meanwhile, Zoo Boy hooked up with some other boys his age and they all had a grand time pretending to man the submarine and the fishing vessel in the room.



There were several programs offered by museum interns throughout the afternoon. J took advantage of two of the craft sessions -- here he's working on creating a "rainbow fish" after listening to the story by that name being read.

Zoo Boy declined to participate in the crafts, but was all over the live animal demonstration (which happened to be a bantam rooster). Here he shows one of the homeschooling Moms in our group how to use "two petting fingers" to appropriately touch the rooster.

We were having so much fun, I wasn't sure we were going to get the kids out of there. Despite spending the entire afternoon there, Zoo Boy still cried "ALREADY???" when I told them it was time to go. I'm pretty sure he'd move right in if they let him.