Field Trips Galore . . . Carnegie Science Center!

We had a busy week, so I'm going to share some highlights before doing a wrap-up of the rest of the week, so you'll have to be patient :)

Last week my husband had classes in Pittsburgh so we tagged along.

Wednesday the girls and I spent all day at Carnegie Science Center. The best part, Little Bit's old enough to really enjoy the whole museum, instead of just the "little kid" area now!

As always, our first stop was the Sportsworks building. It's a separate building full of trampolines, rock climbing, etc. Conveniently, during the school year, it's generally pretty deserted, especially early in the day, and Lexie and Ashlyn LOVE it.  During previous visits, Little Bit found very little to do there, so we had to balance needs, this time, not only was she tall enough and heavy enough for most things, but she was willing to try them as well!

We headed to the trampoline first, because if there's ANYBODY else there, the line gets long fast.  It's a big trampoline with a harness thing so that you can do flips and such. . .  I think the big girls discovered that height can have it's disadvantages, they seemed to have a harder time flipping than they used to. Little Bit was too nervous to flip, but she DID jump, so it's a start. And she had fun, because she went back later to do it again :)

There's a "Body Zone" thing where you go on a simulated journey through the body. Unfortunately, when they tried it, the video wasn't working, and I guess bouncing around in a dark box with sounds, but no video was kind of freaky, so she wasn't willing to try it again until later. My big girls are brilliant, however. In the main museum there was a display that taught about surgery, Little Bit was enjoying it (her favorite, "zapping" wet spots in a diabetic's eye with the laser), and her sisters pointed out that, if she'd go on the body zone ride she could SEE the parts of the body that the surgery exhibits were talking about.

The human yo-yo's always a hit, even when she was little she liked it.

All three girls took turns racing against each other on the sprint track. Although crocs aren't great running shoes and they said the floor was rough so it hurt to run barefoot.

And then the rock climbing . . . THIS one, being taller definitely helped, the big girls looked much more effortless as they climbed this time. . . and, after watching for awhile, Little Bit decided to try as well. She didn't try to go all the way to the top, but she tried . . . it's a start :)

After our fun at Sportsworks we headed to the main museum. Again, there was a real difference in how much Little Bit got into things. She would have happily spent most of the day building mountains of sand for the water to run between (it WAS fascinating . . . just a table of sand with a special light over top of it, but somehow the light could sense and make it "rain" and all the water (just blue light) would run down the hills/mountains into the valleys, and if it "rained" enough the hills turned green . . . it was cool!)

The big girls took another turn with the astronaut exhibit, but said the harnesses really hurt their legs, so they didn't spend very long with that.  There was also a space exhibit where you sat or lay on a wheeled thing and had to pull yourself along the side of the "space station" and hook and unhook things. The big girls did well with that, Little Bit was still too small for the laying down one, but had fun with the sitting one.


As already mentioned, the surgery exhibit was a hit too. Little Bit liked the eye surgery, and brain surgery. The big girls were most challenged by the endoscope exhibit.

There was a building thing that all the girls played with for awhile, bit blue foam blocks. . . and then we headed into the little kid area for a little while.

Finally we headed back to Sportsworks to re-visit the exhibits there before we had to leave. Little Bit did go in the Bodyzone thing that time, and liked it.

AND this time there was somebody at the Unicycle thing. The big girls have eyed it longingly for the 5 or so years that we've been visiting this museum. It's a unicycle on a track way up high over everything. Counterbalanced so it can't fall . . . you ride it out and back, but you have to be tall enough to sit on the seat and reach the pedals and last time they were just a tad to short (the "test" is a seat mounted to the floor that you have to be able to straddle and have feet flat on the floor). This time they were tall enough, but when we were there first thing, nobody was there to let them ride it.  The verdict after riding it, Lexie's complaint was that it didn't go fast enough, Ashlyn found it kind of scary.

A busy, but fun day! Still definitely one of our favorite museums, and awesome that now all the girls enjoy the same exhibits!