Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn, NY/Building Brainstorm Exhibit
President’s Day in New York City. To some this was a day when most parents were off from work to care for their children who were beginning a week long mid-Winter break from school. Aside from her husband being home from work, NYCity Mama saw this as another day, another opportunity to seek out adventures for her family to enjoy together.
And today she sought to adventure into Crown Heights, Brooklyn and introduce her children, and herself, to the newly renovated Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Mama was curious about visiting the first green building in the city, and children’s museum in the World (founded in 1899), which had gone through some renovations before reopening in September of 2008 after completing an $80 Million expansion project.
The boys love visiting museums, but the 11 year old was a bit skeptical of what he would find there. Other visits to museums focused expressly on children often left him feeling a bit bored and left out. But, because the family belief is that one never knows what a NYCity Mama Adventure will bring, he was hesitant to stay home and potentially miss out.
They took their car for a quick ride over the Brooklyn Bridge, though commuting to the museum by train is also an easy task on the A, C or 3 trains. Parking nearby was not a hassle at all, which was nice since the museum does not offer private parking. They arrive to the museum, located on a quiet neighborhood block, and enter to find a wide, colorful lobby, bustling with the sound of children at play.
Before Mama and her husband had removed their coats, the little ones had escaped and ran into the museum’s Totally Tots play area. This amazingly fun, colorful play area caters to toddlers and their curious and playful personalities. The first stop the younger boys made in this area was at Water Wonders, where they played with handles that made water sprinkle or bubble or squirt into the large pond full of toys and water. They climbed in and out of a tunnel which led them to the middle of the pond, and watched the water as it trickled down a small waterfall which they could control my moving the various panels. The 2 year old refused to wear the readily available smocks to protect the little ones from getting wet, and within minutes his Spongebob shirt was drenched. But he was so busy having fun and playing that it seemed the only one uncomfortable with it was Mama. So, she decided to ignore it and let him play.
Soon after, the boys moved on to the Sand Play area, where the kids found blue sand, a few shovels, small containers, and other tools to carry, move, and spread sand on the toddler height sand box. From there they moved towards the playful Toy Town, creative Little Theater, musically fun Sound Around, and artistically inclined Art Studio. One missed spot, but noticed by Mama was the Reading Nook, and the Baby Hub (for 18 months and younger).
But Mama had brought the family in mostly to visit the museum’s newest exhibition, Building Brainstorms. Her fascination with architecture and design drew her to the museum, and she wanted to see how she could share her curiosity in this area with her children.
The exhibit is made up of a series of challenges: Shape Search Challenge, Shapes in Building Challenge, Inside Shapes Challenge, Window House Challenge, Floor PLan Challenge, Room Design Challenge, and Brainstorm Challenge. All of these incorporated activities that inspired the kids to be creative, curious, thinkers, and problem-solvers. It was especially fun to see her entire family sit by the building blocks section (part of the Shapes in Buildings Challenge) and spend quite a long time building houses, and castles, and everything else they could think of. Mama appreciated that the exhibit is bi-lingual (Spanish and English), thus making it possible for those non-English speaking parents to enjoy it with their children. She also enjoyed the various photography and informational panels, from materials used in certain structures, to the information of environmental effects when using one material over another. It’s a great exhibit that she and her family really enjoyed.
On the same floor, the kids were able to participate in the Lincoln’s Log Cabin activity, in honor of President’s Day!
Another one of Mama’s favorite exhibit was World Brooklyn. Here she watched as her little ones played in the International Grocery store, where they shopped for all sorts of foreign delicacies and even pretended to check things as they moved along the belt by the register. Other Brooklyn area favorites displayed here, such as Don Paco Lopez Panaderia and L&B Pizzeria were incredibly entertaining, allowing the kids to play, interact with other children, and even make their own pretend pizza.
Other fun activities were found at Neighborhood Nature, where the kids played with a pebble pond, looked for bugs through a magnifying glass, participated in one of the museum’s scheduled activities at the Touch Tank, did some imaginary gardening, crawled through a tunnel under an aquarium, and listened to the sounds of nocturnal birds and insects. Whew!
The museum has tons of other activities and exhibits that Mama and family didn’t manage to get to before the little ones started to show signs of exhaustion. The Library on the 2nd floor is well stocked with books, with plenty of comfortable reading corners to relax and read to your child. Also on the 2nd floor, the permanent exhibit, Collections Central, which showcases cultural artifacts and natural science specimens. The boys did look around here and also were intrigued by all they touched and saw there!
Needless to say, definitely a place where the hours can go by without notice. Even her 11 year old son thought the museum was the coolest place ever, “even if it was called a Children’s Museum“.
They managed to get the kids out, no fits, no fuss, just plenty of promises that they would be back to play soon. A promise Mama will be happy to keep.
You can read more of NYCity Mama’s visit on Mommy Poppins!
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Love this blog…wish I had gone =P
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe first stop the younger boys made in this area was at Water Wonders, where they played with handles that made water sprinkle or bubble or squirt into the large pond full of toys and water. They climbed in and out of … This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 4:55 am and is filed under Activities, Brooklyn, Cool Finds, Indoor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. … [...]