OMSI

For Christmas this year, Santa brought our family a membership to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) so on Sunday morning we packed ourselves a lunch of sandwiches, cheese sticks, chips, and fig newtons so that we could drive up to Portland and spend the day at OMSI. For those of you who have been to any sort of children's discovery museums, OMSI is just like that but on a GRAND scale. We were there from the time they opened at 930am until 1pm, with a half hour break for lunch, rushing through parts (accomodating kids' attentions spans) and didn't see absolutely everything. It would have cost us $25 to go for one day, but the family membership was $75 and gets us in as often as we want for the entire year 2008.

The current feature exhibit is The Ends of the Earth, which goes from polar bears at the north pole to penguins on Antarctica. This is a slide that they have where the kids can put on a penguin costume and slide down the 'ice' just like penguins.

Kellen played a game that shows the far range that penguins might have to go for food. Once you start the game, you have to touch as many lighted fish as possible, as they show up on the table amid the icebergs. Once you have filled up on fish then you push a button at the top that feeds what you've found to the chicks.

Madison in front of a mammoth skull; imagine the size difference at its full height!
Kellen and Madison played at the water table, showing how water flows and what happens when we dam it up, both the pros and the cons.
The next room had actual fossils in the form of dinosaur bones, shells, and other things. They also had plastic dinosaurs for the younger kids to play with.
Kellen enjoyed looking at all the fossils in this room, especially since the far side of the rope has real works in progress. The piece on the corner next to the man in the red vest is a real fossil still in its plaster from being shipped wherever it came from.

The Discovery Lab is designed for the 0 - 6 year olds and has quite a lot of things for the young ones to do. This is a 'tree' where the kids can put on a chipmunk costume and pretend to store nuts for the winter.The art room had craft supplies where the kids could make pictures, play with play dough, and have fun. This was one of Madison's favorite things. I didn't do a very good job with the picture, because you can't see the top, but the kids put the ball in at the bottom, close the flap over the opening, and the air flow inside pushes the ball up 7 feet where it pops out the top and shoots towards a large funnel which drops the ball back down another tube. Maddi had a blast playing with this one.

At the end of the day, Madison was completely exhausted and fell asleep almost immediately.
It was a great time, and we look forward to going back many more times in the coming year! In early February they're doing a dinosaur attraction and we definitely want to see that.