Field Museum

We really had a great time at the Field Museum a few weeks ago, despite Jared running repeatedly away from me through the exhibits. I don't know what we're going to do with that boy sometimes. Steve doesn't want us to chase after him, but he will go on and on, running farther and farther ahead, and I can't take the chance of losing him in such a large museum. I'd love to take the kids places like this by myself, but until Jared can understand the importance of staying where I can see him, for now I need to have someone else with me.

The kids were much more interested Sue, the largest, best preserved fossilized T-Rex, and the woolly mammoths much more than on previous visits, mostly, I think, because they are really into the show Dinosaur Train right now. We started to go in the exhibit with the preserved animals, but realized if we didn't eat lunch soon we wouldn't be on time for the 3-D show.

The 3-D show Dinosaurs Alive! was pretty intense. Jared was glued to the screen the whole time. It was so awesome to have these recreated dinosaurs come out of the screen and almost seem to touch you. I highly, highly recommend this show.

Outside the theater, we walked past a unique display. There was a handle that led down to a vat of tar, and you had to pull on the handle to see how heavy it would be to pull yourself out of a tar pit.

Of course, the only way to the museum's central area from the theater is to walk right through a gift shop. We spent quite some time there, at least a half hour. It's hard not to feel like you're wasting your time just looking at stuff where there's an entire museum to explore, but I know to the kids it was a whole room of exciting things to explore. So we had puppet dinosaur fights, played with dinosaur figurines, and tried on dinosaur masks.  

I had thought we'd head to another exhibit, something we'd never seen before, but the kids wanted to go to the Crown Family Playlab. So, that's where we spent the rest of our time. They headed first to the percussion room....

then to the dioramas..

the dinosaur section where they pretended to sit in a dino nest and brush off dinosaur fossils...

Next, they headed to the play pueblo where they gathered corn and cooked it over a kettle...

made puppets out of paper bags in the art room....

and of course tried on animal costumes where they even encouraged me to join in the fun.