Sacramento children's museum

We visited the Sacramento Children's Museum recently with some family.  It's an interesting place.  Having worked at the Duke Energy Children's Museum in Cincinnati gives me a different perspective when I visit these types of places.

It's not exactly in Sacramento, but in Rancho Cordova.  Parking was relatively easy on the weekend.  It shares the parking lot with City Hall.  There is a tiny shopping area at the entrance, but not a full gift shop and no cafe.  But it isn't far from a number of restaurants if you do need food.

The price itself was reasonable.  They offer military and other discounts and are with ASTC, which means it won't hurt to ask about a discount if you have a membership to a museum.  Another great thing is that kids under 1 are free.

Once past the front desk, Tobias and Genevieve went straight to the train table.  It's a great height for them although they couldn't reach the boats well.  They weren't there long before they were called to the side where there was a large tower of foam blocks for Tobias to try to knock over and a giant light bright to distract Genevieve.  She wasn't quite sure what to do with the pegs, but was fascinated by it.

When she pulled herself away from the wall, she ignored the small sand area as it was slightly hidden and the play house.  Instead she went straight to the tubes on the wall which used air to create vacuums and propel scarves or foam balls about.  She loves these types of activities.  It was a little tough for her to move the pieces herself but she kept trying.  She experimented in rolling balls on the ramp as well.



On the other side of that wall, they created a sensory experience by hanging pool noodles from the ceiling.  Genevieve enjoyed traveling through the area but it didn't last long.  My main concern with this area was that it is difficult to watch your child through the hallway, which means you are either going through with them, which means they are missing out on experiencing this independently and you are getting hit with pool noodles, or you are going back and forth to keep your eyes on both sides.  Not as much of an issue with older kids when you can stay back further, but since this was new for Genevieve we wanted to keep a closer eye.


While she played there, Tobias went to the baby area with daddy.  It's a safe crawling place but he quickly bored.

Meanwhile, Genevieve headed to the art room.  She didn't really join in with the activities at the table but delighted in being able to paint the window.  They do a pretty good job of cleaning up space for new kids without making the area to wet.

Finally came the highlight of Tobias's day.  In the back corner, they have a water area.  There are several different tables at different levels and with different designs.  Tobias spent most of his time at a table by a Duplo wall.  The Duplo were meant to play in the water and on the wall, and the table was the right height.  The other tables had flowing water, to play with currents, control flow with pipes, and experiment with fountains.  Genevieve tried these out.  They have a few jackets to keep clothing dry, but I would definitely recommend extra clothes for little ones.

Genevieve tried those other tables out but left to play in the town before Tobias was done in the water.  She ended her day on the stage, admiring the fact she was also on TV.

Descriptive Words and Other Language Activities

We have been enjoying our new gifts from the holidays this week but have been missing our usual classes and time with friends.  We are getting ready for the new year with a new schedule of activities though.

Genevieve has really been enjoying these Water Wow books by Melissa and Doug.  She has been practicing her letters and numbers and playing with animals in these books.  She is really trying to figure out what letters words begin with.  She also loves counting.  The animal book is just fun for her to play with.  So far she has really enjoyed these books, and they are very reusable.  The water board she had before was similar, but tended to collect dirt which was really difficult to clean in the end.  These brush markers are great, but your toddler may press to hard and slowly scratch the pages.

Since there aren't any storytimes this holiday season, we have just spent some time playing at the library and picking out new books.  It's actually really interesting that she seems to be ignoring a lot of picture books and choosing board books and chapter books.  She also really enjoys the puppets.  Tobias wants to play with beads and peek-a-boo with the puppet tree.  Because she has been having so much fun with puppets, and got some great new ones handmade by her grandmother for her birthday, we used a leftover cardboard box from Christmas to make a puppet theatre.  She started painting it this week.

 One of ABCmouse's newer activities is a song about using more descriptive words, like drizzle instead of rain.  This inspired us to look at some other sources for descriptive words.  We read Rhymoceros and Hippopposites by Janik Coat which were filled with great descriptive words and simple illustrations to demonstrate each word like blurry and furry.  Over in the Jungle uses great verbs to describe the animals motion.  It also follows the rhyming song she loves, additional learning activities, and interesting illustrations.  The illustrator, Jeanette Canyon, uses different techniques in clay to create the images.  We followed up our books by making a texture collage and discussing the way the different items feel.

We ended the week with some puzzles.  I love puzzles, and have great memories of putting puzzles together with my dad.  Melissa and Doug make some great wooden puzzles.  Some have chunky pieces.  Others have large or small knobs for picking up pieces or even magnet poles for lifting the pieces.  But why do puzzles with your little ones?  First off, they are a great starting point for dialogue.  Sometimes it can be difficult to try to talk with your infants and toddlers.  You know the more words they hear from actual people, the better but what to talk about?  Puzzle topics are a springboard.  From shapes to colors, animals to letters and numbers, puzzles cover a range of topics.  Puzzles can help improve fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and spatial reasoning as they maneuver pieces into their place.  You and your toddler or infant can work together, building teamwork skills, or they can build self-confidence completing puzzles on their own.  Plus Tobias will tell you puzzle pieces make excellent noises as you crawl with them.

For more information about puzzle benefits in early childhood education:
Learning for Kids
Teach
Child Development Institute
University of Chicago