New Exhibits at the Children's Museum

Rebecca and I went to the Iowa children's Museum this morning and it was empty. It was snowing so I'm guessing lots of people didn't want to go out. It was awesome having the museum almost all to ourselves.
Last week I was able to go help the museum open the train toys for the new train/ABC reading exhibit that opened this past weekend, and today we got to go play with those toys and see the new exhibit.

They have a miniature train set that in mostly in the main train exhibit room, but also goes into the 2 rooms on either side. The artist of the train set really paid attention to details. The track runs through town and has pictures and buildings just like the train really goes by. They even have a Hawkeye Express train that picks up passengers out by the mall and drops them off by the Hawkeye Stadium. It's so fun! They have all the trains and tracks out for the kids to play on, and then they have a big train for the kids to climb in.

They made some new trees for the ABC/reading part of the room that has a tunnel through one and stairs leading up to a window. Rebecca thought that was pretty cool!
Usually I stay clear of the art room, but today we went in to paint and I'm so glad we did! We used tempera cakes, which are awesome! (I bought Rebecca some this afternoon I loved them so much!) They are similar to water paints, but the colors are more vibrant. It's tempera paint dried into round disks. You wet them like water paints to paint. When your done, you let them dry out and they are ready for your next painting session. Less mess, less waste, more fun!

I loved seeing the concentration on Rebecca face as she painted. We worked on painting straight lines and then I'd help her make the legs to make an "R" her most favorite letter!!

She was so proud of her masterpiece!


We also played in their new bank exhibit. They have a cute little car next to a drive up teller window complete with working movable teller window. We played bank teller and customer for a long time.

I'm so glad we have a museum pass and can go whenever we want to. The 3 older kids are pretty bored with it, but Rebecca still loves to go and play. I can see a few more years of fun for her here.