We were really excited to take the kids to the Chicago Field Museum. We've been there a couple of times (before kids!) so we knew it would be a fun place for them to explore. The museum has a lot of hands on type stuff, which they love, and fun exhibits that kids are interested in - dinosaur bones anyone?
It was really crowded when we got there, but once we headed off into one of the wings, it was much quieter and we were pretty much alone. The first wing we went through had all sorts of exotic animals that had been stuffed (kind of creepy but still neat!). The kids enjoyed looking at all the tiny animals, as well as all the animals they already knew.
Jonah wanted a picture with Lucy next to this baby octopus.
Henry loved this little kangaroo/fox type thing. He loves furry, small and cute and this little guy fit the bill!
My little barnacles. Not the best photo, thanks to my phone case and the flash, but you get the picture - sort of.
After we went through the taxidermy wing, we headed across to see the gigantic T Rex named Sue. It is the largest, whole skeleton ever found. It is seriously huge. Glad it's dead because I would not want this thing searching for snacks while I was around! The kids are hiding under the sign. Look how tiny they look in comparison to this skeleton!
Next up was the mummy exhibit. We had told the boys about it so they were chomping at the bit to get to this one! I think they were both scared out of their wits, but also incredibly fascinated with the whole mummy/embalming thing. It is super weird. I didn't get a lot of photos because my flash was annoying and the kids kept rushing ahead to see what was next. They really loved this exhibit. They have actual mummies on display - not very enjoyable to look at. They also had a whole room dedicated to the animals that were mummified for the gods. It was super weird. They mummified baby crocodiles, cats, hawks/falcons, a goose, small dogs. It's really fascinating to think Moses grew up among all of this. We were reminding the kids of the roll Egypt played in the Old Testament.
There was also a bug exhibit where you "shrink" down to bug size and experience life as a bug. They have you walk through this "shrink ray" type thing and mirrors make it look like you are shrinking. The boys totally believed it and were a bit creeped out by it. But once we got into the exhibit, they were excited. They each got a turn shedding their exoskeleton. Nice. I have a picture of Dan doing the same thing on our honeymoon. I've never loved him more.
After the bugs, we went downstairs to the whole kids area. It was so neat! They had a forest for the kids to play in with fun costumes to wear and animal sounds to explore. Lucy made a really cute skunk! There was also an Indian hut with a corn field where kids could harvest the corn and cook it up to make food. (They didn't actually cook anything, but it was really cute!) The boys played in this part for a long time!
After prying them away from the corn field, we found this cute dinosaur area where you could excavate dinosaur bones from sand. Henry had fun doing that for a while. Lucy enjoyed playing in the dinosaur nests with the baby dinosaur puppets.
They also had a music room that was sound proof from the rest of the place. Do they know kids or what?!? Henry LOVED playing the drums! He actually played them pretty well too!
I know we saw some other exhibits that I don't have pictures of. Overall, we had a really great day and enjoyed taking the kids to the museum.
No comments:
Post a Comment