Children's Discovery Museum

Last Friday, we drove to Bloomington and Normal, IL. We heard about the Children's Discovery Museum there from another family staying in our hotel. Let me tell you, we've been to a few children's museums across the country and this was by far the BEST one we've visited. The first impression started with a beautiful, three story building, in the downtown area of Normal, IL. Normal is a small college town that hosts Illinois State University. The next impression was walking through the front doors of this squeaky-clean building and asking the front desk if they offer a military discount. We have gotten military discounts at all children's museums we've been to (I believe), and they have graciously knocked off a dollar or two from our admission. This museum sent us in free! What wonderful, appreciative people they are.


A few different angles of the building from the outside:






What's a children's museum that doesn't have one of these?:


Jaxon likes watching his daddy's big hands make an impression from the other side.



What a cool way to measure height! We stood about a foot from this "scale" and it told us our height. It was very accurate too.



They even had some areas for Sissy to play!



Here's Jax in the pizza delivery truck.



At the pizza "restaurant" taking orders over the phone. Later, he would "make" some pizzas and put them in the delivery truck to be delivered.





Art Studio:

The third floor consisted of art activities from music to performance to creating. The painting center was my favorite and I dream of a day I can have a paint center for my children like this.

There were palates with primary colors in a tray. The kids helped themselves to the paint and went crazy painting the walls. Yes, you read that correctly. They painted the glass walls. Then there were spray bottles and squeegees for them to clean up the wall when they were finished. What a brilliant idea!

Dipping the brush in paint.



Daddy went to the other side of the glass to capture Jaxon's artwork.




Legos!



Hi Sis!



They had a craft room with everything you could imagine for creating crafts. Jaxon made a silly face with funny hair (made from two hand prints glued on top).





Farm:
There was a very neat interactive area in the farm section where the kids could learn about the process of farming.

Here Jax is putting the "feed" in a tube, that will transport it to a cattle feed.


Then he had to walk over to the cattle feed to open the chute and let the feed out. It was quite a process.





When we were finished at the museum (almost three hours later), we walked across the street and ate here:


Delicious hamburger for me. Yummy grilled cheese for Jax. Amazing Chicago-style hot dog for Jason.