Rockford Children's Museum

The first couple of days of spring break were pretty uneventful and boring for the kids, so we spiced things up today by going to the Children's Museum in Rockford.  We only go about twice a year, but it is always so much fun when we make it out there.  Now that Malcolm is older, and reading easily, he's into the more science-y exhibits.  Dorothy is still more into the pretend play aspects or the exhibits where big things happen easily, like the air tubes or the water play.  Both kids had lots of fun and we are all exhausted.

 Every other time we have gone, we have done the agriculture exhibit last.  The kids both love this grain mover, and I have to literally drag them out of here.  I suggested that we start with this section today, so they could have as long as they wanted with the grain mover.  It's two big bins with a series of augers, buckets, pulleys, and a conveyer belt that transports the "grain" (little plastic pellets) from one side to the other over and over and over again.

 Loading up the bucket by hand.  There were tears when another kid hoisted it up before she was done filling it to her satisfaction.

 Watching the grain go through the auger.

 Turning one of the augers to move the grain.

 Malcolm cranked this one as hard as he could for a very long time to try to empty the grain from the lower bin.

 I did eventually lure them out of the ag exhibit.

 Magnatiles on a light table.

 Pulling the rope to make a bubble around herself.

 Sometimes, I get a little bored just standing around while they play.  No one was at the sentence structure table, so I had a little fun.

 Giant pin board.  That is his face and one of his hands.  The other hand is Dorothy's.

 They had fun being on opposite sides of the wall.

 The goal here was to fill up the platform with the shapes and have it be completely covered.  They made a good start, but didn't finish it.  Behind Malcolm was a grandfather who was having a great time filling up his board.

 These were neat three dimensional shape sorters.  The blocks were irregular shapes that had to be turned just right to fit.

 She got it!

 There was even a pinball game, which was new since the last time we visited.

 There is a kids' news room where Malcolm had a great time.  He really liked being the camera operator and did that the majority of the time.

 He did take a turn as Batman (he's wearing a Batman cape, but it's hard to tell) in front of the green screen.  He told me later that "Being Batman didn't go so well."  He prefers to be behind the camera than in front of it.

 While Malcolm did the news as Batman, Dorothy was in the art studio.  They had dot painting as the activity today and she worked really hard on her painting.  She took her time and concentrated so hard.  We left it on the drying rack, then forgot to pick it up before we left.  She is heartbroken, and I feel really badly because she really did put in a lot of effort.

 Building circuits to light up the board.

 I think Dorothy got a little overwhelmed with being pushed out of the way by bigger kids and having littler kids come along and "wreck" whatever she was working on.  She had this giant dollhouse all to herself, and she played here for a very long time.

 There is a large pretend play area where Dorothy tried out many various professions:

 Train engineer...

 ...mechanic...

 ...crane operator...

 ...jockey...

 ...horse groomer...

...and exotic vet.


They had fun, and I need a nap.