Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Dinosaurs

We recently hit up the dinosaur exhibit when we were headed to DC to drop Brian off at the airport.  I'm not going to put any helpful hints about visiting the exhibit with pre-schoolers in this post, because the exhibit is going away!  For a long time.  They are taking years to remodel it, so there's a good chance we'll have moved again by the time the exhibit is reopened in 2019!  To think they'll be 7 and 9 by then.  

Q?rius Jr (the new name of the discovery room I mentioned here) was our first stop, as always, and then we headed on to see the dinosaurs and the hall of paleobiology.  Theodore was going to be studying these in school following our visit, so I thought this would be good pre-experience for him.  Other than occassionally catching "The Dinosaur Train" show, he hasn't had much dinosaur experience yet.  Eli had a great time at the museum, but Theo was being a bit of a grumpy three-year-old.  I did want to share this photo of Elijah who loved the walls with the different prehistoric landscapes.  How grown does he look there?

We did get a quick pic in front of a plate-a-saur stegosaurus (as Theo can now identify for you/me), despite the huge crowd of people there on the first warm weekend in a while.  I have to say I prefer going to the museum on the weekdays for sure.  And, sans stroller!  It was the first time we've taken Eli on an excursion of this kind without a stroller, and he did great.

Another Day at the Zoo

Here we are congratulating the panda daddy on his baby's birth.

 Theodore is in that stage where he asks questions about everything, so taking him to the zoo is a bit of a different experience now.  But his statements are just as interesting as his questions.  The things he comes up with are just so amusing to me.  I never know what his little brain is thinking.  My three favorite conversation snippets from yesterday:

Mama:  See the big orange fish in the koy pond?
3-year-old:  Yes, can we eat them next week?

Mama (reading from sign):  The big bad wolf (gray wolf) eats moose, deer, beavers and rabbits.
3-year-old:  And bacon.  Pigs are bacon.

3-year-old:  What is he doing? (When they let the elephant out into the walk area.)
Mama:  The elephant is going for a walk for exercise.  Like we walk the dog.
3-year-old:  Elephantses don't need leashes.

Walking on the elephant's footsteps.  All of them.

We also seemed to be very lucky today because without really trying we stumbled across four different zoo-keeper talks/demonstrations today.  They were each really interesting, and I hope to plan a whole trip around catching as many of them as we can sometime.  This time we saw:  Sloth Bear Talk (10:30), Elephant Training (11:00), Seal Feeding (11:15), and Meet a Naked Mole Rat (2:00).

And I even got a chance to play with my new (and already broken and repaired) camera today.

Always a successful day when we leave with one asleep, and one who soon followed.

Gardens, Boats, and Mail (more Smithsonians and the National Botanical Garden with young kids)

Last week, we planned our day in the city around Brian's birthday, taking him out to eat in Alexandria for lunch.  Some of the food was pretty good, but a full-blown tantrum from Theo because the Greek restaurant did not have lemonade kind of ruined the meal for us.  It was so unexpected too.  There used to be a time when we were very leery to take the kids to restaurants, but they are both at great stages right now and I never dreamed he'd act the way he did.  I think he may have just been very dehydrated after spending all morning outside.  And once he got a huge lemonade from the bakery across the street, he was perfect the rest of the day.  On the bright side, I really liked that bakery, and hope to check out Bittersweet again soon.  Without a hysterical three year old.

But the rest of the day was great!

In the morning we finally got over to the United States Botanical Garden.  I have never really spent much time at gardens or conservatories, but have realized in the last year what a great place these are to take kids.  We spent the whole morning identifying colors, counting petals, and discussing the different ecosystems the plants (and animals) live in.  And got some fresh air and exercise at the same time-a great morning.

Some Logistics:  We parked at a 2 hour meter this time on 3rd street right when the gardens would open (10am).  Hats and sunscreen are a must when visiting here, as there is a lot to see outdoors as well as in.  The whole place was pretty stroller accessible (lots of automatic doors, one of my new favorite things), and though there weren't family bathrooms there were very clean, roomy ones.  There were several comfy chairs and couches throughout that would make great nursing stations.    The garden also offers tours and some experiences designed for kids (check the calendar on the website).  We visited for about 1.5-2 hours at a pretty quick pace.

 Theo decided this one was a dinosaur plant.

We originally went because I'd read there was a children's garden.  This section was pretty small, but there was a wooden house to play in, a tunnel (of trees) to go through, and tools to use.  So my three year old was happy.  It is a good stop between looking at all the other exhibits, or at the end of the visit to give the kids some play time.

I thought it might be fun to make some kind of scavenger hunt when Theo is older for finding all of the plants that provide food.  There were so many different kinds of food trees and plants, which were a real learning experience since Theo didn't realize many of those foods grew like that.

He also didn't realize mama and dada used to live in the desert where sites like these organ pipe cacti were common.

The last area we went through was the photo gallery at the end, which Theodore thought looked like a living room.  It was pretty cozy, and cool, and just a few steps away from the Capitol Building.  Such a relaxing respite from the hustle and bustle of the area.

There really were so many amazing flowers that didn't even look real.

And we even found some Chrysanthemum on the way out.

Proof that I was here too (so hard to get any pictures with mama):

Since we had a little more than half an hour left on our meter, we went into the National Museum of the American Indian which is right next to the gardens.  I have only been to this one a couple times before, and was surprised and excited to see signs about an interactive area for kids and families when I walked in.  We hustled up to the third floor and found the imagiNATIONS Activity Center.

In the entryway to the museum, Theo had been drawn immediately to the different boats on display, and I was happy to see that we could continue on this topic in the activity center.  I feel learning experiences do come most naturally for him when he is interested and can make connections to other things.  And we keep the topic narrow.  So we focused on the differences between kayaks and canoes.  In addition to seeing the real ones on display in the lobby, Theo then got to explore two play ones in the activity center.  And the interpretive cart topic was even focused on these boats.  There were also many other things to explore:  basket weaving, different types of American Indian homes, and boarding.  There was a make-and-take craft area and even a small reading room.  Basically, a great place for pre-k to school age kids.  This museum has a great family guide available on their website at  http://nmai.si.edu/sites/1/files/pdf/education/NMAI_Family_Brochure.pdf.

Finally, we ended the day by heading over near Union Station (Theo loved this grand train station) to the National Postal Museum.   This is a beautiful old building.

 I have dabbled in collecting some stamps in the past and have always loved getting and sending mail, so this museum holds  a lot of interest for me.  Though not the most little kid friendly of the museum, Theo was still very interested in the different modes of transportation that mail has used, from carriage to train to semi. 

We also got to review the ABCs in the Alphabetilately exhibit.

And the last exhibit was actually the best in terms of interaction for school age kids.  They can pretend to sort packages, use the zip code machine, scan with scanners, and hand cancel their own postcard.

We'll have to go back for a visit, since they have a new gallery opening in September!

And we ended the day by celebrating Brian's 31st birthday with some great cake!

Sampling Smithsonians (with young kids, pre-schooler and baby)

Last week we decided to focus our weekly day-in-the-city on checking out some of the museums and areas around the National Mall.  Now, I've been to the National Mall several times with various configurations of people:  in 8th grade as a student by charter bus, with Brian several times as a couple, with my girlfriends and our moms, with my family and newborn Theo, with my family and a two-year old nephew, and finally twice as a teacher with 8th grade students.  I have arrived by bus, van, car, or metro.  The choice of museums and speed of the visit really depends on who you are with.

So yesterday, while taking the two boys by myself on a mild end of summer day, I chose to just sample a couple of the specific exhibits in two of the museums, and in the middle of that take in some of the outside activities.

Nothing opens until 10am around the National Mall.  I had planned to visit the botanical gardens nearby earlier, since we were there by 9 after dropping Brian off for work, but even this wasn't open yet.  So, once we finally found a metered parking spot, we took our time finishing up breakfast and waiting for the museums to open.  I'd like to give some tips about parking here, but I still haven't figured out the best way.  There are parking spots all around the perimeter of the National Mall.  The signs around them say no parking from 1-10am, and then 3 hour limits after that.   However, these were almost completely packed by 9:30am, and I was too chicken to park there before 10 (in the future I will chance it), so I took a metered spot on 7th St (where most of the food trucks park, fyi), and then moved spots around noon.  The shorter streets that go through the mall have different amount of hourly parking, ranging from 1-3 hours.  It really is best to just take the metro in, but I wasn't sure how Theo would do with all the walking and I didn't want to chance it.  He ended up doing pretty well.

So, without further background, some activities for 4-5 good hours on the National Mall with a three year old and an almost one year old on their level.

1st Stop:  The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum for their Flights of Fancy story time.
Walking there, we took some time to walk the outside scale model of the solar system (since we were early) and talk about the planets.  Theo was very interested in learning about other places.  Then we back tracked to the ramp entrance on the west of the building, since we had the single stroller.

Once inside, we grabbed a map, and Theo selected some exhibits based on the pictures.  We went through the open-air "America by Air" exhibit, touching and touring an airplane model and talking about flying on them.  

Then, we headed up the elevator to the "Apollo to the Moon" exhibit, where Theodore could have spent all day just at the Lunar Roving Module display, where they had the actual devices and tools used on the missions to the moon, as well as diagrams of these items.  Theodore was very interested in "what" and "how" and "why" everything was used for.  He is still saying he wants to build a plane to take his dog (and now his brother) to the moon, so tools are a big obsession right now.

Finally, we headed to the "Pioneers of Flight" gallery, checked out the airplanes, learned about Amelia Earhart, and talked about why someone would use an air balloon.  As story time approached (11:00), we headed to the carpet to play with some toy airplanes for a while and settle in.  The book today was "Moon Plane," so Miss Ann of the museum used her models to discuss the difference between airplanes and spaceships, and then started in on the story.  Theo was enthralled with this, and enjoyed the book as well.  Afterwards, he did a rubbing of a boot print on mars, and some rubbings of planes from some plates she had.  He also got to check out more tools in her display case, ones that would be used to fix planes.  He loved this of course.

Other exhibits to try:  "How Things Fly" is a hands-on type of exhibit for kids to learn about lift, drag, and thrust.  The planetarium show:  One World, One Sky:  Big Bird's Big Adventure is free every Friday, Sunday, and the first Saturday of each month at 10:30 am.  (Theo saw this at age 1 1/2 and loved it.)

2nd Stop:  The National Gallery of Arts Sculpture Garden for the funky house sculpture.
On our way to the next exhibit, we decided to walk through the National Gallery of Arts Sculpture Garden.  It is a beautiful place (with just a few stairs), with a cafe and fountain (ice skating rink in the winter) in the middle.  Some kids did slip off their shoes and wade in the fountain, but we just threw a lucky penny in and moved on.

3rd Stop:  Riding the Carousel
We decided to try out this carousel, and delighted to find that it actually gives you a nice long ride at a quick pace.  Tickets were $3.50 (yes, parent helpers must have a ticket for kids under 42 inches), except for anyone under 1 year, which meant Eli was free.  I was able to stand between the two and was surprised how well Eli held on.  He really loved it.  After this, we found a spot on the lawn under one of the many trees and had our late picnic lunch and I nursed Eli.  It was very relaxing, other than the sparrows that Theo had to keep chasing off. 

4th Stop:  Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for its discovery room
I wanted to take a look at the hands-on discovery room I had read about in this museum, so we headed in here.  Like the other museums on the mall, we had to go through a bag-check at the door.  This one was done by hand, while the Air and Space one uses a machine.  Both say no food or drinks, but they didn't say anything about the kids snacks and drinks that I had in mine.  This one also did not have a ramp entrance on the mall side, but does have one if you go around the back of the building.  Theo chose the ocean exhibit, and almost immediately asked where Nemo was, and we then found some clownfish in their aquarium tank.  Through the back of this exhibit is the discovery room we came for.  It is a really neat place, though of course it was a little overcrowded as many of the areas on the mall were on a nice summer day.  Theo jumped between inspecting the items with a magnifying glass, microscope, and binoculoars.  Eli liked the feeling the different shells in the texture bags, and we even slowed down and read a story in their reading nook area.  All in all, a nice room for this age kids, but not much more than a 30-45 minute stop.  We then headed upstairs to the Insect Zoo, to check out the real insect exhibit they had there.  Theo said "eww" a lot.  I think he has picked that up from me.

And since our second parking meter was about to expire, we called it a day on the mall and headed out to wait on Brian to be done with work.  Definitely an enjoyable, cheap, educational day with my two little ones in the middle of the hustle and bustle of one of the countries biggest tourist attractions.