The Magic House

Today we went to The Magic House, a children's science museum in St. Louis.  It was super fun!  Both of the boys had a great time even though Austin missed out on his nap.  For some reason, my kids won't sleep in public, or in the car for that matter.  I see other kids sleeping peacefully in their strollers amist chaos but it never happens for me. 

First we went into a special exhibit about recycling, reducing and reusing.  It was fun.  Gavin tried out a bicycle and 'drove' a recycling truck.  Austin got in the recycling truck too but another little boy that was in there kept bonking him on the head so he wasn't sure if he was having fun or not.

They both enjoyed riding in the smart car.  Those things are so tiny!

Then we moved on to the exhibits.  They are all very hands-on which is great.  Gavin didn't get the science behind the activities but he still had a great time exploring.  They had activities experimenting with sounds and music.  Gavin rolled a ball down a track and it hit different sized metal pans and made different dings as it went to the bottom.

They also had an activity where you play keys on a keyboard and the keys somehow pump air through water filled tubes that were different sizes to produce different sounds.  In this picture Gavin was just watching the bubbles but he did get to play the keys.  Austin loved the bubbles too!  I chose this day to leave the stroller sitting in the garage so I spent a lot of time holding Austin.

Austin did love these bunnies...crawled right to them and patted them then threw them on the floor.  They were for some math game.  I didn't get to read the directions because I was too busy trying to put them back on the shelf!

They had a really cool car with an engine in a little mechanic garage with tools.  You could take apart the engine, fill it with oil and windshield wiper fluid and even take the hubcaps of the tires and change the tires.  Gavin really liked this!  At the end of the day he told me it was one of his favorite things.

Then they had a fishing pond.  You caught a 'fish' and took it to the other side of the room and threw it into a little puddle sized pond.  They you could watch your fish swim back to the big pond under the floor (it had plexiglass over it and looked like a river underneath it).  The boys had fun looking in the ponds and watching the fish swim by.

Then we went to the special baby room.  Austin had a blast climbing stairs and exploring without me having to be right there directing.  He tried to climb up the slide but couldn't quite figure out how to get down the slide.  It also had mirrors and he loves looking at himself in the mirror!

Then we stuck him in the ball pit.  He really liked it and promptly started throwing all the balls out!

Gavin got lots of climbing in!  I told him to stop and smile for me in this picture which is why he has the grimace on his face...that is his smile according to him...

Then both the boys played in a huge sand table.  Austin mostly picked up sand and threw it on the floor.

Austin got really mad at me when I made him leave the sand table.

Then we went into a room that had a bunch of pulleys.  Gavin managed to use this pulley to lift himself up a foot or two, and it was really hard to do.  I was really surprised he managed to get himself up at all!

Then we explored the power of air.  Gavin made a windmill spin and then watched air lift balls up in the air.

Then he put a golf ball on this little roller coaster and shot it into a bin.  That was very exciting!

Then we went into the bubble room.  Gavin stood inside a hula hoop-sized bubble wand and I managed to raise it almost to his shoulders before the bubble popped. 

There are bubbles around the triangle even though you can't see them.

Then we went outside and played in a giant sand pit.

We almost missed the lower level but decided to go back in to see if we could find it and it's a good thing we did because Gavin learned how a pulley is used to put up the flag, he got to test out his Presidental skills in a replica of the Oval Office and he got to play in his very favorite part...the construction zone!

The construction area was really neat.  They had two buildings.  One was a house and it showed how the walls go together with electrical and plumbing.  The other was a industrial building.  They also had the construction office with blueprints and activities but Gavin was too young to appreciate the office yet.

These pulleys were so hard to move...I don't know how Gavin managed it other than he was having such a great time.

And yes, he took it this seriously!

This thing was really cool.  It was kind of like a vaccuum cleaner using air pressure.  You put a ball in the end and it would suck it through the pipes but there were switches you could turn to change the direction of the air so the ball would go out in different places.

And finally, they had a big three-story spiral staircase and in the center was a giant flower.  The top story had the petals and the bottom two floors were the leaves and kids could climb up the flower to get from floor to floor.  It was neat.

Well, this has turned into the longest post ever.  We had a great time and will have to make it a yearly trip because there's lots of great concepts here and the kids will learn something new every time they visit.  Hopefully everything makes sense.  I'm super tired and it's taken forever to get all these pictures up but hopefully everyone will enjoy looking at them!