Science Museum

We went to a local science museum today with some friends of ours who are staying in the area.   They have three children, the youngest of which is three years older than my son.   We knew it would be a fun day, but how fun would it be for my daughter was our big question?

It was a hand-on museum, but most of what you interact with still needs to be seen to understood.   Also, she’s only four-years-old.  We started out approaching the dinosaur exhibit.   My daughter wanted to enter at the railing and black screen area instead of the entrance, which she couldn’t see up ahead.   She could hear the exhibit though, which was precisely through that black curtain area she was standing in front of.   Score one for the ears.

She was able to see the large dinosaurs and got a sense that there was movement, but because she couldn’t see as well as hear, the motors and recorded noises weren’t fun to her and she wanted to move on.    There was an area to do crayon rubbings of dinosaur parts that she tried out and had fun working on, but since she couldn’t discern what she’d rubbed out with the crayons because it wasn’t high-contrast, she lost interest fairly quickly.

My husband spent some time with her in the sea life area where there were large sea animals in multiple aquariums, but again, that’s all visual-based and she wan’t that interested.   He brought her over and told me she kept saying she wanted “to do something”.   I told him I’d have a go with her.

We found the largest light bright board I’d ever seen and because it was colors on black, she had a very good time working on that.    I thought the water area would be interesting as it was about making paths for water by inserting plastic sheets in areas to stop or add water flow.   Unfortunately, she couldn’t see the small insertion points for the parts and couldn’t interact or see the water flow because it was clear.

We found a balance table on which she and a friend placed wooden blocks for a while that she enjoyed.   She stood up and went over to a teenage boy and grabbed his hand, not knowing it wasn’t me.   I gave him the “just a sec” look and rescued her.   He never said a word and I don’t think she knew.

She had an okay day, but ultimately, it wasn’t a “good” vision day for her.   Some days are just like that.    This afternoon at the pool with our friends she had a much better time.

The Big Boy Update: My niece asked my son, “do you want to go to prom with Madison?”   He replied, “no, but I want to go to Tae Kwon Do and have her come with me…oh, okay. I’ll go to prom with her.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had an okay time at the science museum today.   One of the things she liked the best was the plastic pin wall.   It’s a large surface of adjacent plastic pins.   You can press your hand or face into the pins and they push out towards the other side.   On the other side were other children pushing the pins back.   She spent a lot of time pushing and watching.