Discovery Place Kids

Carly and I made a much anticpated trip over to Discovery Place Kids today. It is a hands on museum currently geared towards children 1 - 5 (although there overall plan and proposal was for birth - 7, so I'm expecting more as the center matures and more donations flow in). I was very excited that this museum would be less than 10 miles away from our home, but slightly skeptical about how my one year old would do and what the crowds would be like this inital winter. I went knowing that more than likely Carly and I would go through, enjoy ourselves, and I would walk out applying today's admission to an annual membership, I was absolutely surprised that when Carly and I walked into the first exhibit of the museum I was ready to turn around and go sign up for our membership immediantly.

The museum is set up as a huge Play Town (think of a play house on a town size scale). There is a fire truck, medic truck, veternarian's office, doctor's office, grocery store, theater, airport, farming area, cafe, bank (with a car pulled up at the drive through teller), car mechanic's shop, and art studio. There are also many other exhibits that represent our area - a small scaled NASCAR car and boat for kids to play in. Along with two HUGE water tables, one for kids to walk around, and a smaller one for toddlers to walk/cruise around and with highchairs attached to it for younger babies. There is also an area fenced off (with a cute white picket fence) for babies 0 - 36 months. This has a small cottage style place house, small ride on toys, the smaller of the two water tables, and a mat area for non-mobile babies.

Carly had an absolute BLAST playing in almost every exhibit. She wasn't interested in the dress up clothes that were at each exhibit, and we did skip over some of the I CAN exhibits (like brick making, car mechanics) that she wasn't tall enough to investigate. There were also some that she cognitively wasn't ready for that we bipassed, but that made me very excited about being able to explore this new museum for many years to come. (It would have been a disappointment if she could have done everything.)

Carly working as a veternarian.


Grocery Shopping


Now I'm a chef!


Cleaning up my mess in the kitchen.


Weighing the baby!


Walking on the "sunken ship" in the "underwater" exhibit.


Driving through the bank with her BFF (although the car doesn't move).


Flying the helicopter.


Water Table #1


Water Table #2


Ready for the rapids!

There are a lot more pictures on SmugMug. Unfortunately, my camera battery did begin to die so I had to choose my photographic moments wisely during our last 45 minutes.