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. 




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



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



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



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




 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.)



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

 

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).



We saw a giant clam shell…..




a humongous slab from a Redwood tree….



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….



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



playing with matryoshka dolls….



a dinosaur dig….



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



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.

 

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



We finished up in the rock and mineral rooms.



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.