We challenge you to tell us what kids like more than dinosaurs. Go ahead, we’ll wait. That’s why a trip to The Children’s Museum in West Hartford is a Tyrannosaurific way to spend a Saturday.
The museum recently opened its new Dinosaurs – Jurassic Treehouse, replete with T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Parasaurolphus and Apatosaurus. Kid’s get a flying Pterodactyl’s eye view of the critters was they wind their way through the Jurassic tree house overlooking it all. The exhibit runs through the end of May.
Apt to be around a lot longer is the museum’s perennially popular Conny the Whale, a 60-foot-long sperm whale replica that emits whale sounds and—during he summer–spouts water through his (he’s a guy) blow hole.
Not all that far north is the Boston Children’s Museum, one of the country’s very best. Next year is its 100th anniversary of the national treasure. There kids can:
- Practice the performing arts on KidStage.
- Safely climb a three-story sculpture composed of brightly-painted curved platforms that rise like a squadron of magic carpets in the museum’s new glass lobby. You can follow the route of your child up the assembly via a set of stairs.
- Immerse themselves in the far away at the Japanese House. There they can discover the customs and ceremonies of traditional Japan.
Down at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum you and your child can walk around the world in a single block at the new World Brooklyn exhibit. There’s a Chinese stationary story, where kids can build a lantern. Next door is a Mexican bakery, where they can mix and shape their own pretend dough. Next comes the international grocery, suffused with products from the big, wide world. At the West African import Store kids get to “shop” for dolls, textiles, masks and such.
The sum total of all this exploration, from Boston to Brooklyn, is that it opens your child’s eyes in a way that video games can’t begin to. Get them, and yourself, out of the house and into a 3-D world suffused with new sights, sounds and experiences.
Story by Jerry Chandler
(Image: tehusagent)
