Visiting the Nature Museum

Yesterday we enjoyed a visit to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.  The Chicago Public Library has a program at all their branches where you can check out free passes to 14 local museums. This week when we went to our local library branch, the pass to the nature museum was available, so we took it.

I felt like this was an excellent museum for kids, and Jesse will really love it when he gets just a little bit older. It was very interesting on an adult-level, too.  He had a blast this time, but there are still lots of things he doesn't understand when we go to places like this.  Perhaps it's because the whole world is like a museum to Jesse at this stage.  For instance, he was more interested in trying to climb into the pond in the Butterfly Garden than looking at the butterflies, and was really fascinated with all the buttons he could push in different exhibits, but of course he didn't understand what the buttons did.  Nevertheless, it was fun to watch his little mind at work and see him exploring new territory.

One of our favorite exhibits was about bicycles.  Apparently Chicago was the bicycle manufacturing capital of America in the 1890s (and maybe still is?) and is where Schwinn originated.  One part of the exhibit talked about the benefits of bicycling from an environmental standpoint, and there were bikes set up that kids could play with.  Jesse enjoyed transferring groceries from a shopping cart to a bicycle basket.

There was also a big "bike" you could climb up on that would take you (via a movie screen) to different locations throughout Chicago.  Jesse was mainly interested in the climbing aspect and punching buttons (it was hard to read any of the displays because he was constantly pushing the buttons to switch them).

Writing on the wall with chalk was lots of fun, too.

Another favorite was the "green home", where you could tour a home and learn about various ways to be more environmentally friendly in different parts of your home.  There was a cool tunnel for kids to climb through and lots of fun gadgets to play with throughout the rooms.  Jesse loved getting to play with the toilet seat in the fake bathroom (this is forbidden territory in our house).

In the basement of the green home we saw some black widow spiders, brown recluses and other insects (in boxes, of course).  Jesse was mostly fascinated by opening and closing the doors.

This was a big air blower that allowed you to move the giant leaves and spider webs that were hanging from the ceiling.

We'll definitely be paying another visit to this museum. I liked that it was small (unlike the other museums here) and that we were able to see most of it in just several hours.