Please Touch Museum

Yet another installment of our vacation in Pennsylvania. This time we visited the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. I thought it was a pretty nice children's museum that was definitely geared towards the younger kids. There were plenty of exhibits that were hands-on and practical for our young children. Piper was not in a very good mood that day, and was not wanting to share, but I think she still had a fun time.

We started out in Wonderland which had a fairy tale garden, the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, a maze and hall of mirrors. They liked the cooking area and the tea party.

Next we went to City Capers which was Piper's favorite place. Jaxin loved the construction area but she was melting down there and wouldn't play nice and share.

She absolutely had a ball in the supermarket and got to push a little shopping cart around a big store to shop for groceries. She filled her cart with all kinds of veggies, fruit, cereal, bread, and of course, chocolate syrup. I think she would have stayed in there all day. They also had a medical center that she played in for a little while and took care of a baby. Very sweet.
Another area in the museum was Roadside Attractions. There were cars to work on and build, a bus to drive and a city park. One of the exhibits was closed and was filled with balls. Guess who still managed to climb inside the plexiglass because she wanted to play with those balls? Not once, but twice did I have to drag her out of there. I can't believe she squeezed through that tiny space.

Flight Fantasy was a section where kids used their bodies to make things go. I thought it was a pretty interesting section. Some of the activities were a little big for our kids, like the hamster wheel, but they still found things to do. Piper loved this wheel that made the ball go up and then down a series of tracks.

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The carousel was fun.

We saved the River Adventures until the very end, so that if the kids got wet, they wouldn't have to walk around all day like that. There was a water play area and a Woodland park. The lily pads were neat and made sounds when you stepped on them. Next to the park area was the giant floor piano like the one they had on the movie Big. They loved running back and forth on it making "music". Unfotunately, Piper didn't weigh enough to set off the sensors most of the time.

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All in all it was a fun day. It inspired me to take her to our local Children's Museum more often.

Children's Museum

On Monday we went to the Children's Museum downtown. It was the first time Piper had gone and she had a lot of fun. We spent most of our time in the Playscape area, which is a spot designed just for kids 5 and under. Even better, there were two different spaces within Playscape that were specially designed for 2 and under.

I knew that she would love playing in the water. She had fun pouring it out of the containers and splashing. Grandma was worried because she kept trying to put the toys in her mouth. Even though the water was clean and sanitized, it probably wasn't a good idea. It's hard for Piper to understand that these were different toys, and even though she can do this at home in the bathtub, she can't here.

She also really liked the sand table and spent quite a bit of time there. She wasn't sure if the feel of sand on her arm was okay or not though. It seemed to bother her and we had to keep brushing it off. She was very serious and studious as she explored in the sand. I wish we had a house so I could get her a sand and water table to play with in the backyard.

Of course she loved the physical activities. There were tunnels and padded things to crawl on. She climbed the stairs to go down the slide and loved stacking up the giant blocks just to knock them down again. This was one of the under two areas, and it was nice she wasn't running around with the bigger kids for once.

She also played in the kitchen,where once again she put everything in her mouth. But hey, that's what you do with pretend food, is pretend to eat it. Duh Grandma! We smelled and planted flowers, picked some vegetables, and rode an airplane.

Finally, at the end of the visit we rode the carousel.

If you would like to watch all of the activities, please feel free to look at the video montage of the whole day. It includes photos not already shown, as well as video clips of the different activities.

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