Check out We Play at Childhood 101 today! Here’s a fun time Sweet Pea and I shared!
While Cutie Pie was attending what we dubbed Dino Camp, Sweet Pea and I went on a few dates. One place we went was to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY, which was just down the road from where Dino Camp was held. Normally I have my hubby and both boys with me when I am there, and actually cannot recall any time that I’ve been there with just Sweet Pea since he was born. We only had an hour there, but a 1 1/2 year old’s attention span isn’t very long, so it was plenty of time for us to get around! As you can see in the pic above there was hardly anyone there, and it was awesome getting to see what he is interested in rather than playing with him as we follow Cutie Pie around to what he likes to play with!
Mindbenders Mansion is the current rotating exhibit there (ending soon, if not already), and was there when I took Sweet Pea. Much of this is actually way over his head, but with having the whole place practically to ourselves we took advantage of touching everything! You can see him pulling on a cord here. It’s actually a 4-person puzzle in which you work as a team to move an item, attached to the end of 4 cords, to a specific spot. Sweet Pea enjoyed simply pulling and letting go over and over! He also touched all of the puzzle pieces and other activities in the exhibit, simply because he could!
Also in Mindbender Mansion is a conveyor belt game where you have to get pieces to fit into a mold before the mold reaches the end of the conveyor belt. Sweet Pea was a little too short to play, but enjoyed running back and forth with the pieces for me to fit in. Unfortunately he didn’t bring enough of a variety of pieces for me to actually get any molds filled for them to count as complete! However, we laughed a lot together!
There was also a game where you had to spell a word that the computer said by stepping on the correct letters. The letters would appear on the TV screen at the top of the puzzle while lighting up under your feet and the screen would flash if you spelled the word correctly. Apparently Sweet Pea thought he was a good speller, however, the computer did not! He really liked jumping up and down on the letters to make them light up, though!
And how could we not visit the Berenstain Bears area while we were there and take a ride down the slide after climbing into the tree house a time or two?
On the way out we walked through the super heros area and Sweet Pea tried his hand at Whack a Foe. I must say not to call him if you are in need of these services! It was adorable watching him try! And to complete our visit, as we walked past Superman, he said “Mommy, there’s Daddy!” so I had to stop and take a picture! I love spending time with both of my boys, but this was a particularly enjoyable date with Sweet Pea, and one I’m hoping to do again, because we didn’t make it even half way through the museum that day and I’d love to see what else he’s attracted to when Cutie Pie isn’t around!
LOL, I love that he thinks of his Daddy as Superman (although, I hate to tell him but Princess informed me last night that Dadda wins the #1 Dad award!).
Interactive museums are so great, I am really glad that things have moved this way since I was a child. We have an awesome science museum here called Scienceworks which I have taken Princess to several times and she loves making things work. It has a sports area too, so she can play virtual soccer or tennis, practice shooting hoops or racing an Olympic athlete! It certainly adds so much more to their day when they get to “do things” instead of just “see things”.