American History Museum (America on the Move)

I love when what Theo is doing at school fits seamlessly with what we are doing at home.  This week was the school's "Transportation" week, and Theo got to spend the week learning and playing with all his favorite things.  On Monday he was so proud of the train he made during craft time (telling me how he put windows on the cars so they weren't tanker cars) and had a great time riding his trike at school Wednesday during "bike day".  Yesterday as soon as he came home he carried up his huge tote of cars and played with them all evening, after making a car craft with a photo of himself as a driver. Today is the big day where we finally get to go meet the king of all things that move-Thomas the Tank Engine.  We are surprising him, and I hope he loves it.  It's amazing how excited I am to take him to it, but I guess that's one of my favorite parts of being a mom.  Doing something with my child that he will just love.  I'll post pics and a review of this soon. But while I'm on the subject, I had a few other train posts I was planning to share.

When we first went to the American History Museum, we had a conversation that I think I will always remember (even with my poor memory skills).  We came upon the huge engine on the first floor beside the stairs, and Theo asked why it wasn't moving.  I deflecting the question back to him, expecting for a logical reason, perhaps because it is inside a building, or that it doesn't have the fire burning to fuel the engine.  Theodore's reason was that, "There is no driver."  While logical I guess, it wouldn't have cracked my top reasons for why the full size train wasn't chugging through the museum.  He is now at the stage where he knows more than me....  he'll tell you he knows everything (gets that from his dad).

Just past the big engine is the America on the Move exhibit; a great one to go through with any children you have that are interested in anything that moves.  Since we live so close and visit the National Mall often, my method of visiting the museum is always to just pick one or two exhibits in each museum to see and focus on that theme for the visit.  This great exhibit has a couple locomotives and a street car that you can (pretend to) take a trip on, as well as other modes of transportation (even motorcycles, Theo's old favorite).  It is a very kid friendly exhibit, and I'm sure it will spark lots of questions that you may or may not be able to answer for your little one.  (I couldn't get good photos of him, since he is always so excited in the exhibit that he won't stop moving long enough!)

Waving to the driver.