The Museum Visit

We spent the whole day at the museum. As usual, the kids and I pored over every little thing in each of the glass cases in the first fraction of the museum for about half of our visit, and then, attention overloaded, raced past most of the rest of the exhibits. We stopped to say hi to some of the old favorites, and spent quite a bit of time looking at the Native Fishing Village Diorama. I guess that the kids were really able to appreciate the details now that they’ve had some experience making their own clay miniatures.

Ever since the Winter Festival, we’ve been reading about beavers, the fur trade, and the history of Canada, so they were quite interested in the trading post artifacts, and really enjoyed the full-sized replica of a boat that made the voyage from England to the Hudson Bay. One of the nice things about going solo to places like the museum is how much attention we get from the tour guides. The young man on the boat explained about ocean speed being measured in knots, let them play with the navigational equipment, and entertained us with riveting details about ocean travel.

This is a picture of a beaver skull. The beaver in question apparently died when the overgrown incisor tooth punctured it’s cranium.

Wanting to get my money’s worth, I made what was a bit of an error in judgement, and suggested that we have a look at the Science Center after the museum visit. I should have just gone home and come back another day, because both of the kids were tired but happy at that point, and by the end of the Science Center, they were tired, overstimulated, and cranky. Jay especially. She spent the last hour clutching my hand and moaning about the noise.

I was interested in seeing the Science Center, because it’s recently been overhauled, but I was underwhelmed. As usual for a place like that, lots of gadgets and computer screens and flashy displays, lots and lots of kids basically running around aimlessly and screaming, but, as far as my jaded eyes could see, not much in the way of science learning. My kids treat the place as an indoor playground, dashing from one button to the next and bridling at my attempts to explain the theories behind each display. There was an impressive new racetrack, but there were so many school groups there that it was next to impossible for Tee to get in on the action, and after waiting in line for a while, he lost interest.

Still, there was one exhibit that was worth the whole visit. I could barely drag Tee out of there once he’d discovered it. It was an animation station, in which kids were invited to set up Lego scenes, take individual snaps, add computerized sound effects, and then run all of the snaps as a sequence. We spent the whole car ride home talking about clay-mation and the endless exciting possibilities for Plasticine City. We’ll have to get our hands on a video camera, because he’s tried with my digital camera, and the batteries wear down too quickly.