Monday, December 17, 2012

Dinosaurs! (Indy Children’s Museum)

Keith always saves some vacation days so that he can be away from work for the whole week of Christmas.  This year, he had one extra vacation day beyond what he needed for Christmas week, so we decided to have a special family day.

After thinking through some options, we decided to go to the Indianapolis Children’s Musuem.  The last time we were there, Alex was two and Max was a baby.  We were really looking forward to visiting the museum again!

While the whole museum is lots of fun, there was one very special part for Alex: the dinosaur exhibit!

IMG_7062

Since he just learned about dinosaurs a few weeks ago with MFW K, Alex really enjoyed their dinosaur display, dressing as a dinosaur, being a pretend paleontologist in the dinosaur dig, and having a long chat with a REAL paleontologist. 

Poor Max panicked shortly after we entered the dome with the dinosaurs on display.  The dome gives the impression that you’re outside.  The sky changes from day to night, there are occasional “thunderstorms”, and you can hear dinosaur noises/roars and thunder from time to time.  My sweet three year old just couldn’t separate fantasy/reality, and he kept saying, “Take me back inside…PLEASE take me back inside.”  We hurried through that section to get to the dinosaur dig, but Max was still too overwhelmed to enjoy himself.  Instead, he just snuggled with Daddy.

IMG_7060Alex dug for quite a while, and he told the museum worker all about his mini dinosaur dig kit that he’d completed at home.  She sweetly listened as he told her all about it.

IMG_7053IMG_7058IMG_7055

Jensyn thought she’d try, too Winking smile

IMG_7054IMG_7057

We moved on to the dinosaur play area, where Alex dressed like a dinosaur.  He thought it was pretty fun to have his own dinosaur hands tail and hands!

IMG_7063IMG_7064IMG_7065

Jensyn had fun playing in there, too!
She took pretend naps while Alex played,
and then she’d pretend to wake up and give us big grins.

IMG_7067IMG_7068IMG_7070

We saw real, fossilized dinosaur eggs and read about types of dinosaur eggs.

IMG_7072IMG_7066IMG_7073

We examined real dinosaur bones and watched a real paleontologist hard at work, gluing together some bones.

IMG_7074IMG_7075

Then, we saw that the window to the paleontologist’s work room was open, and Alex had a long chat with a real paleontologist.  He got to hear about the dracorex dinosaur, which (if I understood correctly) is the most recently discovered type of dinosaur, and see the model of a dracorex that the paleontologist was working on. 

This picture is a display case of the real dracorex bones:

IMG_7082

In this picture, the paleontologist is in the background, and Alex is touching a real t-rex bone.

IMG_7076

Here, Daddy & Alex are checking out a real meteorite.

IMG_7077

Max finally settled down enough to enjoy the dinosaur play table with Alex.

IMG_7078IMG_7079IMG_7080IMG_7084

Alex enjoyed moving the sliding x-ray of this dinosaur.

IMG_7081

All three kids loved watching the trains, even Jensyn got really into this!  I’d say this was her favorite.  Even when we were ready to move on, Jensyn still stood watching the model trains and saying, “Choo choo!”

IMG_7100
(Can you see Alex’s head peeking out in the middle of the model train display below?)

IMG_7087IMG_7088

IMG_7089IMG_7086

The kids collected rocks from a rock slide in ancient Egypt…

IMG_7090IMG_7091IMG_7092

Max was fascinated by this sarcophogus puzzle.

IMG_7093

The kids dug for Chinese statues…

IMG_7094IMG_7096

…and built Chinese statue puzzles

IMG_7097IMG_7098IMG_7099

The boys loved the HotWheels exhibit…

IMG_7043IMG_7047IMG_7049IMG_7050IMG_7052

Daddy and the boys went down the big winter slide…

IMG_7101IMG_7102IMG_7103

…and then we went to Bears Playhouse for some good ‘ol toddler fun!

IMG_7104IMG_7105IMG_7106

Our last stop of the day was the Jolly Days Christmas room where we did some ice fishing, climbed in the ice castle, ice skated in our socks, and waved hi to Santa.

IMG_7108IMG_7109IMG_7110IMG_7111

Before leaving, we let each boy pick what he wanted to see one last time. 
Alex wanted to return to this construction site:

IMG_7031

IMG_7025IMG_7027

IMG_7028IMG_7029

Max just wanted to sit and watch the amazingly-awesome ball display.
Seriously, he sat here without moving for 20 minutes!

IMG_7113IMG_7114

IMG_7115IMG_7116

IMG_7023

We stayed at the museum from shortly after opening until they were getting ready to close.  It was a LONG day, but oh-so-fun!

Here are a few more random pictures that didn’t fit elsewhere in the post:

IMG_7032IMG_7033

IMG_7035IMG_7039

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow this looks like an amazing children's museum!! What fun!