Saturday, August 4, 2012

American Museum of Natural History

We took a field trip into New York City this week to visit the American Museum of Natural History.   It is possible to take a train right from our area into Penn Station in NYC, so it’s not a complicated trip but it does make for a long day.  This was my first time taking the younger guys, though I have been there with Steph.  Grammy Kaye and Granny Franny both went with us so I had some help keeping track of them.

I was a little worried about how the kids would feel about the train ride, not worried enough to spend the $20 in tolls and $40 to park it would take to drive in, but they loved it. 

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Once we made it into NYC, we hopped a cab up to the museum.

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We started with the dinosaurs, of course.  It is amazing how large they really were.

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The museum had lots of interactive exhibits with things the kids could touch….

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and interactive computer screens where they could get more information on the evolutionary branches (Georgie’s favorite of course)….

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 there were special displays in each room showing what evolutionary advance each room represented (examples were the amniotic egg, a movable jaw bone, hip bone structures, etc.)

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We spent lots of time examining the rocks in the Hall of Planet Earth, which had information about volcanos, earthquakes and the rock cycle.

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We watched a cool movie on the Big Bang and the formation of the universe and another one about evolution (that I would really love a copy of but it doesn't seem to be available), saw a model of the moon and were able to see how much we would weigh on the moon (mommy certainly liked that number better than the usual one).

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We saw a giant clam shell…..


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a humongous slab from a Redwood tree….

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and we visited the Discovery Center.  The Discovery room is for kids to get a hands-on look at some of the things found in the museum.

Masks:  matching masks with their country of origin….

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getting inside a native american mask with handles to control the mouth and flippers.

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playing with matryoshka dolls….

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a dinosaur dig….

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adding magnetic dinosaur bones to a metal frame to put together the skeleton…..

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Georgie played with some wooden totems for a very long time.  I was hoping to find something similar tht he could paint and play with when we do native americans but I wasn’t able to find anything.

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Vicki explored collection drawers filled with a variety of specimens of bugs, shells, feathers, rocks, etc.

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We finished up in the rock and mineral rooms.

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After all that walking around, Georgie fell asleep on the train ride home.  It was a fun trip and I hope to do it at least a few times a year as we go through different units that the museum has exhibits for.  We skipped all the human origin and animal exhibits this trip.

2 comments:

  1. How fun! We're planning on taking our son there next week, and he is really excited about the dinosaur skeletons he saw on your page.

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  2. Don't expect to see it all in one day. The place is huge!

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