Science and History Museum

If you know me at all, you know how I feel about children's museums (LOVE them!), and since the girls and I seem to hit up the zoo-im in every city we visit, we're pretty much experts on the subject...the newly reopened and renovated Fort Worth Museum of Science of History was totally awesome. We are huge fans. Unfortunately I didn't take enough pictures of the exhibits, but here's the link *THIS IS THE LINK* There is a Children's section which is really cool, but most of our (my) favorite parts were outside of that one little section.

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The "big kids" in the way back! SO adorable!

This is a GREAT museum for older kids! Carly was right on the edge of "getting" most of the exhibits...like this dinosaur skeleton puzzle in the middle of the paleontology exhibit. We've found that a lot of museums with a kid focus cater to the preschool set, which has been perfect for us =) but it was cool to see higher-level stuff for older kids to do.

Measuring a bison femur to enter the measurement into a formula (on a touch-screen computer) to determine the animal's weight. Afterward, she measured a dinosaur femur into the same formula and we found out that the dinosaur weighed 24,000 pounds!
Outside the little kid area, there is a really neat outdoor space. There are some water features (I'll steal photos from Beeda and Amy later...they had the current feature and the water gun feature, so cool). Here is Bree running toward the splashing. She was so excited!
Carly, looking too old. They had this open-ended abstract structure in the shade with green I-beams in a roughly square structure, with three levels of floor and different 'rooms.' There were several foam blocks and a couple of kid-sized wheelbarrows for moving the blocks around, a couple of pulleys, a working light...Bree had the most fun on that. Oh wait! I have a video! I'll put it on the bottom...whew!

Water feature!

Unhappy about going inside.

She got over it really fast, though in the little grocery store. She was really into gathering carrots.

Must...get...all the...carrots. Kinda like mommy at the grocery store...

Then we went to the most beautiful pavilion for our lunch...I hope it's on the website because it was so peaceful and lovely. The walls were painted periwinkle and the seats were bright yellow. The entire back wall was a fountain with water running over little rocks...so pretty. This was our lunch! It got lots better when Amy broke out the yogurt raisins and chicken salad (and Coke Zero!). That's almond butter in the circle thing. =)

Amanda had been walking the kids around this raised garden but they wanted her to join them...I think every kid needs a Beeda. You can't have ours, but all kids should have someone like our kids' Beeda. =)

Another section of the museum is called DreamTime. There are two labs on each side of the main hall, one of which has this cool wind tunnel where the kids got to make different sculptures and see how they'd fly. Another had a stop-action film system, another one was just open-ended art...

The DreamTime foyer with the beautiful ceiling sculpture

The fourth lab, the roller coaster lab! The theme of this building lab changes every so often...if we lived here we would be at this museum ALL the time. It was just so cool.

The back room of the DreamTime had so many features, like three pottery wheels turning slowly with sand and the kids (and parents!) could make different designs in the sand. There were also twenty cans of tinker toys and different heights of tables, a shadow room, a kaleidescope table with mirrored sides and tangram blocks...I could go on. They have coolest features I've ever seen.

Now we're exhausted. Simon, Carly and Bree all had trouble going down for their naps. Bree didn't fall asleep until 5:40 and she's probably down for the count. I expect that Carly will be, too. Amanda and I are going to sit down to some Taco Tuesday deliciousness and watch the Biggest Loser =). Tomorrow is the ZOO!