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.

Getting Ready for Winter (and the Holidays)

This week we are beginning to decorate for Christmas and learning about what animals and plants do to get ready for winter.

We read The Sparkle Box, which is a great reminder or introduction to kids about giving to others during the holidays.  The back of the book has a sparkle box you can make, so we made ours and have started filling it with good deeds.  The Night of Las Posadas is a Tomie dePaola Christmas story, talking about the tradition of Los Posadas or the reenactment of Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay the night.  In his story, the people chosen to be Mary and Joseph become snowed in but luckily replacements show up.  Merry Christmas Strega Nona is another in Tomie dePaola's Strega Nona series.  Big Anthony is tired of all the work Strega Nona is tasking him with to get ready for the big Christmas feast she prepares for the town.  But when Big Anthony gets distracted and forgets the shopping, she worries everything is ruined.  Instead, Big Anthony surprises her.  Dream Snow is an Eric Carle classic with counting to 5, farm animals and a farmer that resembles Santa Claus.  Bear Stays Up for Christmas is another book in the bear series.  It has a catchy rhythm, can be a reminder about hibernation, and demonstrates the wonder of giving.  Runaway Dreidel is a cute Hanukkah story set to T'was the Night Before Christmas.  It includes some typical traditions and reminds readers of the letters on the dreidel.  Llama Llama Holiday Drama is a reminder of how difficult it can be to be patient and wait for the holidays when there are so many reminders.  It also reinforces that the important thing is to spend time with family and friends.  The Clown of God is a story by Tomie dePaola that may bring a tear to your eye as a juggler performs his beautiful act as a Christmas present to the statue of Mary and a young Jesus.

We are still working on making Christmas presents and getting ready to send them out this week.  We decorated reusable bags with glitter glue in Christmas shapes like trees, presents, snowmen and more.  We also decorated plastic ornaments in different ways.  We filled them with pom pom or tissue paper and painted some with tempera paints and glitter glue.

The Busy Little Squirrel was a fun book.  All the animals wanted to spend time with squirrel, but he was too busy gathering food for the winter.  Baby Animals in the Snow is a short introduction to some animals that live in cold places like penguins, polar bears, snow leopards and Arctic foxes.  When Will it be Spring is the story of Alfie bear who is too excited about springtime to hibernate through the winter.  Chaucer's First Winter follows Chaucer the bear as he ignores the fact bears are supposed to hibernate and instead discovers some of the fun things to do in the snow.  Bear Snores On is the first of the bear books in Karma Wilson's series.  It follows a predictable word pattern which is great for early readers and examines several animals who stop in bear's cave to warm up while he sleeps.  We also read a National Geographic book about penguins to explore another cold weather animal.

We've been to the zoo and a petting zoo this week and have noted differences in animal behavior as well as thicker winter coats.  For instance, the lion and tiger were sleeping but the snow leopard was really active, which we don't often see.  We also have been talking a lot about the changes we see in plants, and how trees have list their leaves so they can sleep for the winter.  We created a hibernation cave, setting up a comfy place to sleep.  We also demonstrated migration, talking about the butterfly episode of Wild Kratts.  Under Frozen Pond is another great Wild Kratts episode for this topic.

On a side note, Tobias has really been demonstrating his sense of rhythm this week, dancing or bouncing to all sorts of tunes.  Genevieve keeps reminding me that I told her the myth from Ovid's Metamorphosis about Narcissus and Echo as we walk through the tunnel under the train tracks near our house.  She likes to say echo as we walk through the tunnel so I shared the myth and now she likes to remind me "turned to flower.". She's also really been enjoying the holiday specials on Amazon Prime.  Snowy Day has been changed from Keats' original story of a snow day into Peter getting ready for Christmas and meeting friends along the way who share their holiday traditions.  She prefers If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie, based on the Laura Numerous books with mouse, moose, dog, cat and pig all working together to save the holiday play.

Pretend Play and Animals!

Genevieve has been really into pretend play this week.  We've been dressing up as a cowgirl fairy and played puppets, which also have been fairy farm animals.  We read Eating the Alphabet and have played with our pretend foods.  She's used her dice to help dad and mom play dungeons and dragons.  She also used her building tools and then used her doctor tools to help her brother get ready for his doctor appointment.

We also added our M animals, such as moose, mice, and monkeys, to our animal book and pretended to be a monkey.  Genevieve has been interested in sorting and actually lined up some of her figurines on her own.

Tuesday we had a very busy and exciting day.  We played doctor again in the morning before Tobias's doctor appointment.  We read a lot of books with animals, both in storytime and on our own.  The Tiny Little Fly was an entertaining tale with a few animals bothered by a fly.  Genevieve has been loving The Mixed Up Chameleon so it was great that we heard that in storytime.  We also heard the Seals on the Bus, an animal take on the Wheels on the Bus which is one of Genevieve's favorite songs.  We also read Animalia and The Water Hole, which are beautifully illustrated and written by Graeme Base.  His illustrations often include hidden puzzles and should be enjoyed by both kids and adults.  Animalia was a fun review of animals of the alphabet, which compliments her book well and The Water Hole both covers numbers, animals of different biomes, and suggests the effects of extreme weather on habitats.  Genevieve also picked a nonfiction book about big cats of the world.

After Tobias's doctor appointment, we went to a special event held by the library.  A local animal rescue center brought some animals.  There was an alligator, a great horned owl, a kinkajou, a striped skunk and an African crested porcupine.  The kids heard about the dangers of trying to raise wild animals in your home and watched the different animals walk.

My little scientist was also using her magnifying glass to investigate.  Additionally, Genevieve was playing with the clock puzzle and continued her sorting phase by sorting the pieces by color.  We also talked about the minute hand and hour hand, and she enjoyed discovering that the clock also has a face.

She started Wednesday with grandma playing the "bedtime game."  We continued to pretend while we were at dance, taking a "trip to the beach."  We flew as butterflies, played with beach balls, splashed in the water and hopped as frogs through different dance poses.  We practiced our balance with some flamingo poses too.  Genevieve continued to impress her coach with her gymnastics skills, both on the balance beam and with forward rolls.

She added N and O animals to her book.  There are few N animals so we added a newt, but we had fun with owls, ocelots, orangutans and opossums.  She didn't want to pretend to be them as she was tired but we did talk about the way they move.  We looked at A Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte and created our own dot artwork after a nap.  We also exchanged and sorted our allowance money.

Genevieve wanted to pretend more on Thursday.  She was caring for her baby doll at home and then decided Pete the Cat was her toddler.  She gave him a shoulder ride to the splash park and pushed him in the swings at the park.  When we got home, we read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.  I had made some construction paper rhyming fish, so she used her magnetic wand to pretend to fish for them.  We matched them by color and rhyming words, laying them out and then mixing them up again for another round.  We also sorted some colorful caps into our train cars - counting one cap in the first car, 2 in the second and so forth.  She then had some fun sorting them by color and sorting her colorful pasta by shape.

We ended the week with more The Mixed Up Chameleon and a Wild Kratts episode about chameleons.  We used this to discuss camouflage.  We played a searching game with some animals that were camouflaged.  We talked about how we can use this knowledge in hide-and-seek.