Lincoln and Mommy took a special field trip on Friday to the new Perot Museum of Nature and Science. It is such an amazing place in our city that we were so excited to visit. We got there before our assigned time to enter and had a yummy lunch in the cool cafe. The building itself is like an exhibit with all the walls and ceilings displaying fun facts or interactive tools, and there was so much to take in. The escalator hanging outside of the building was a little frightening to Mommy! We couldn't wait to start exploring.
Our first stop was the Moody Children's Museum, and Lincoln loved it! He immediately ran to the cityscape playground. Climbing and sliding and crawling through the tunnel was fun at first, then he and the other kids began to create a little assembly line with the blocks. Linc grabbed the blocks from the floor bin and ran the over to the conveyor belt, the little girl in pink turned the wheel so the belt moved the blocks up the ramp, the boy in the vest took the blocks and carried them to the next conveyor belt, another boy turned the wheel to move them up to another waiting boy who handed them off to a girl to push them down the chute back to Lincoln. They all took their jobs very seriously and worked hard for so long. Lincoln told me later that he was proud that he and his friends worked together! He spent a lot of time in the food market and had fun helping unload the produce from the truck into the proper bins. He then loved creating a grocery list and shopping for his favorite fruits and veggies. Of course he loved to pick apples and oranges and bananas, but in a pretend world he also loves tomatoes and onions! We had to take a picture driving the truck too!
We rode the (scary) escalator up to the top floor to see the dinosaur exhibit next. In the Curious George story about visiting the museum, he spends a lot of time in the dinosaur exhibit. Lincoln was especially excited to see the dinosaurs like Curious George. He enjoyed looking at the giant skeletons, but he wasn't all that interested in the details. We went through that one pretty quickly, but it was really neat. The picture shows that the museum wasn't that crowded at the time we were there - nice!
Lincoln didn't get captivated in the solar system area, weather area, or Texas area, but maybe they were a little over his head this time. Once we got to the Human Body exhibit, he got involved again. We looked at human skeletons and different parts of the body, and he made his muscles (with a crazy weird face) next to a model of the muscular system. We also tried out the body heat sensor and found this cool wall of wood blocks that made your "shadow" impression as you walked by. Such neat stuff!
The Engineering floor was next and super fun! Lincoln learned about air pressure using paper balls in a closed chamber with blowing air. When the air pressure changed, the balls he released bounced around differently. We spent a lot of time at the build-your-own creation station, and Lincoln loved that we built obstacle courses and watched the ball traverse through the course. Sometimes it was successful, and sometimes we had to reevaluate our design and try again. We spent a lot of time there! A remote controlled car was fun to drive, and we even found a set of drums to play! I'm no musical expert, but Lincoln carried a beat with his drumsticks. I noticed that he repeated right-left-right-left-right-left-cymbal over and over, and he was loving his little beat.
We ended the trip with a visit to the Sports Hall, and Lincoln had a real (yet virtual) race with a dinosaur and checked out lots of sports interactive games. Oh, we stopped by the gift shop before leaving and made a few purchases. Linc picked a "grabber" for himself (like a mechanical arm to pick up stuff) so he could pick up stuff to recycle (his words, not mine), and he chose a ball for Beau that changes colors when you throw it. After over 3 hours, we had to head home for an afternoon rest. We had so much fun at the museum, and we can't wait to go back. We still have to check out the outdoor gardens and forest and see the 3D movie. I'm glad we had such a fun Mommy and Lincoln field trip, and I think Beau is just a little too young to take in the whole museum. Lincoln agreed and said that Beau can come when he is 4. I know that we got to experience each activity more thoroughly than if we were keeping up with a 2 year old. A full Beau update is coming soon!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment