Spring Break- Dinosaur Museum Day

Tuesday was another good museum visit day of Spring Break. After a morning relaxing and cleaning and a midday doctor's appointment and then naps, we headed off to The Natural History Museum at Thanksgiving Point and then free dinner at IKEA (are you noticing a theme here- I'm game for free meals for my kids any time and happily plan our excursions around them :).

Most of the museum is dinosaurs but they have a rotating exhibit room and this time it was physics related experiments. My kids would have stayed there the whole time.

Making clouds.
But alas, I made them move on. I LOVE this museum and only wish it wasn't 40 minutes away. It's absolutely perfect in my opinion with one room of stuff to see and learn followed by one room of hands on activities. Just the right mix for little boys who want to see and do and see and do.

So after seeing lots of dinosaur bones they were ready to put together a 3-D dinosaur. Actually I should say Isaac and Ethan were ready to. Miles flipped out. Seriously came running into my legs sobbing about the scary dinosaur that would get him.
Then it was time for more bones and then these magnetic puzzles. Ethan would have stayed there for years...
Miles and Isaac were just as happy climbing on the digging rocks right next to the puzzles.
Then more bones followed by puzzles and dress-up costumes and books to read (and a bench for me to rest on :).

Miles was much happier with this size of a dinosaur!

And then on to the best part of the museum- the erosion table. This table seriously takes up an entire room and can fit probably 40 kids around the inside and outside. There are aprons to keep their clothes dry and then you just let them go.
There are little spouts of running water and mounds of sand you can build into islands or dams. Plus lots of little plastic trees and dinosaurs.
We stayed more than an hour. And they would have stayed all day- sand+water+dinosaur toys=happy boys.
Then more dinosaur bones (and I finally remembered to take a picture :).
And then more dinosaurs to climb on.
More bones. And finally a digging sight complete with brushes and sand.
Well worth the drive and getting free dinner afterwards was icing on the cake. Definitely ready for bed though when we got home. A perfect outing!