Homeschool Day at the Children's Museum

Wednesday was Homeschool Day at the Children's Museum in St. Paul...which meant that we got 4 people into the museum for free and the rest of us at a nice reduced rate! The kids were so excited when I told them where we were going...they love this place.

We got up that morning, got dressed, and got on the road by 9am. (Which is no small feat for a family of 5 children.) The museum was humming...lots of kids running all around. Although, it was much calmer than I was expecting. I'm thinking the cold had a little something to do with that. You see, Minnesota, this great state that we live in (insert rolling of eyes) was a balmy 0 degrees with a -25 to -35 below windchill. Yes folks...it was cold. Cold. But we braved the temps anyway because "free" is a big deal when you have a big family. I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah, humming...but not as crowded as I was expecting.

The first stop was "Our World" where they get to play and shot in a kid-sized grocery store. They all had fun putting plastic food into their shopping carts or being the cashier and checking shoppers out. My bill came to $5,000 and some odd cents. I made a mental note that I should buy groceries some where else. ;) (wink, wink) Ella was the busiest of them all...she was running around restocking shelves which made it so fun for all the other kids that were there too.

Next up was the Korean restaurant, SaeMot. Seriously, I think that I could even have fun playing in these kid versions of the real world. I was served many, many dishes of plastic food and I'm sure I completely overate. I really love that it's a Korean restaurant...it's just fun to be able to pretend you are in Korea and even more fun to tell the kids about their birth country and how it really has restaurants that look like that one. I think it's pretty fun to eat at a short table while sitting on a cushion on the floor.

Another fan-favorite of the day was Water Works. They absolutely love this area and I'm fairly certain we spent a bulk of our time in this room. It has various tables with running water. Whether you are learning about the power of water, how it moves things, or how water can be stretchy (ie bubbles), the kids had a blast. There were many wet shirt sleeves to show for it.

We broke for lunch and surprised the kids by having Jason meet us. He had gotten up early (really early...as in 3:30am) to start work so he could leave easily by noon to have lunch with his kids and spend the rest of the day playing at the museum with them. They loved some daddy-time.

Here are some more pics from the day: