Friday Family Fun Days Pt. 3: Our End-Of-Summer Trips

Okay, I'm cheating a bit. Although we did visit two more museums in Tucson before the end of the summer, we visited neither of them on a Friday. Sorry about the false advertising. However, I still think they're worth lumping into my "Friday Family Fun Day" series of blog posts because they were both family trips designed to make the summer go by smoother. I rest my case. Anyway: here's a couple of museums we visited after our trip to Colorado.

"Friday" (ie, Thursday) #4: a trip to the Flandrau Center

The Flandrau Science Center is a science museum/planetarium/observatory combo, conveniently located all in one small building on the University of Arizona campus.  It's probably not the most revolutionary science center in the world, but it is the perfect size for young kids. Also, the University of Arizona has a well-regarded planetary sciences department; they have developed several space-bound devices (a Mars Rover and more than one orbital satellite). So, I figured the Flandrau Center would have fairly up-to-date information about the heavens.

Plus, planetarium! I have memories of visiting the planetarium in Denver often as a child...I never got tired of the projected starscape. I felt like I was falling into space; it was quite a rush! So, I thought I would try taking my girls to the planetarium on campus and see how they liked it.

Short answer: they had a good time, with a few reservations. Longer answer: the kids really enjoyed some of the exhibits, but had some issues with the planetarium itself. The chairs (which are angled backwards) were a little difficult for my little kids to sit in, and the show ran long for their attention span. Another unfortunate development: the awesome star projector (the giant robot-apocalypse-looking machine behind Lorelai in the above picture) was used only at the very end of the show, to show the position of the various planets in the Arizona night sky. Before that, the presentation was primarily a slideshow with detailed information on all the heavenly bodies in our solar system.

I found the show fascinating. The narrator was clearly a college student, but he really knew his stuff and had loads of information to share. The girls, however, got wiggly. Plus, poor Celeste had to go to the bathroom halfway through, and I made her wait, because Lorelai was terrified of being left in the planetarium by herself. Also, Aurora got tired and the cool, dark planetarium put her to sleep. So, I spent much of the presentation with a sleeping toddler on my lap, another preschooler chair-dancing and whining constantly in the seat next to me, and Lorelai getting annoyed with all of us two seats over. Next time, I may just bring Lorelai by herself (and hopefully pick a show that spends most of the time with the star machine turned on)!

The museum outside the planetarium was much better received:

There was a neat touch-screen quiz, a matching game of sorts with facts about various kinds of predators in the animal kingdom

And of course, the coin funnel/gravity-well simulator is always a hit with the kids

Celeste really enjoyed all the large mineral samples (aka "treasure")

There was a small exhibit about predators of the animal kingdom; apparently, Lorelai thinks she can take that shark

The small mineral hall downstairs had lots of pretty rocks; this was Lorelai's favorite

Maybe...just maybe...we'll come back to Flandrau soon. I would love to see another planetarium show. Also, the observatory is open on many evenings...it would make a really cool date night! I'll keep hoping.

"Friday" (aka Saturday) #5: visiting the Tucson Children's Museum

We've been to the Tucson Children's Museum many times before...I have never felt motivated to get a membership, though, because I'm just not sure it would be worth the cost to me. I've seen bigger, better children's museums, with better exhibits. However, the girls love this place, so I am probably just being hard-hearted.

This trip to the museum was different and surprising; they'd done a lot of remodeling since the last time I set foot there. The dark, outdated animatronic dinosaur room had been completely revamped; now it was full of lots of force/motion/wave science experiments that were all pretty fun...

...especially this contraption. It was a simple design, really; a bunch of pipes were interconnected, with air blowing quickly through them. A few levers down low on the machine controlled the flow of air, so kids could control which way a pom-pom blew through the pipes once you stuck it inside. You can see a pom-pom flying out of the uppermost tube by the ceiling in the above picture; this simple action kept children entranced for long periods of time. I think the girls spent half an hour on this machine alone!

We spent so much time at this pipe structure that I didn't get many other pictures, in fact!

We still spent some time at the older exhibits...like this heartbeat monitor...

...and the rope maze, among other things.

I hope to take the kids back to the Children's Museum at least once more before the end of the year; it will be fun to see what new stuff they come up with next! I found myself impressed, despite my earlier indifference, at the newer exhibits the museum has installed. Maybe this will be the year I change my membership from the Reid Park Zoo to the Tucson Children's Museum? Anything is possible, I suppose.

I am amazed at how many museums we crammed into such a short summer. Still, hooray for us!! Now it was time to start getting everyone ready for school.