I happened upon a blog a while back and they were talking about a free museum that they went to in LA. This museum has a hands on Noah's Ark exhibit. I went and checked out the Skirball Cultural Center (yes, that is really the name of it!) website. Thursday's are free, but you need to make an appointment to get tickets. The only one that worked into our schedule was December 9th at 2:30. We had the kids take early naps and drove out to Sherman Oaks. I got us a little lost, so we were a little late. The tickets gave us two hours to go through the museum, so we still had an hour and a half.
First we had a little introduction and then went into the animal room. All the animals were made out of recycled or re-purposed material. They were pretty awesome. All the animals were hands on and the kids loved that they could touch them.
Zane's favorite were the zebras, but I loved the crocodiles made out of a violin case, a tire, gloves and a violin neck.
Then we went down into the weather room. I think we spent the most amount of time in this room overall. The kids kept going back into this room. They were able to turn knobs and push levers up and down to create wind, rain, lightning, thunder and other animal sounds. Derek kept trying to turn this wheel to make the wind blow. It also moved piano strings so the light shining through them onto the wall looked like pouring rain. It was a little big for him though.
There were animals for the kids to climb on and a cool kangaroo.
I loved all the animals hanging out of the ark.
Also a conveyor belt to put the animals two by two on and get them up into the ark. Zane loved this part.
Nate loved pumping the old fashioned water pumps to make it rain and raise the ark up.
Derek liked pushing down a plunger to create wind and make leaves swirl in a tube.
Daddy liked the Tesla coil to create lightning. I thought that making the coyote howl was pretty ingenious.
There was a big giraffe in the corner with this contraption next to it. If you stood in the contraption and swiveled side to side, the giraffe would turn it's neck.
Next we got to go into the first part of the ark. It had mini ark models on one side of the room and then a larger model with animals for the kids to play inside the ark with. There were little room like things that hte kids could go in and open windows and stuff. There was also an area to help build the outside wall with puzzle dominoes. On one wall was cubbys full of stuffed animals, two of each kind of course. The rafters were filled with all kinds of cool animals. The kids weren't too thrilled with this area, so we didn't spend too much time there.
I absolutely love the pasta porcupines!
From here you walk through a hallway with glass walls. They painted the windows to make it seem that you were looking out into water. Nate kept asking where the fish were out the windows. Derek and Nate loved looking out the windows.
The next room was inside the ark. There was a crawl space above for kids over 4, but Zane wouldn't go in it. There was play food for the kids to feed the animals with and also play poop to sweep up. That entertained the boys for awhile. Daddy enjoyed relaxing on the swing while the kids played.
Nate thought this turtle was pretty awesome! The head bobbed up and down.
Derek looking for more poop to sweep up.
I thought the animal bums in this room were hilarious!
You can't tell too well, but it is a lion and a lamb laying together. Very Biblical.
The last room was the other side of the ark. There were cute animals sticking their heads out the windows. The zebras were my favorite. Check out the mugs for feet.
They had a craft for the kids to do in this room. They were using strawberry baskets, strips of old t-shirts and other cloth, paper strips, clothespins, pen lids, string, etc to build nests. Our boys could have cared less. They also had some funny animal blocks in here so my boys played with them a bit. Our boys spent the least amount of time in here. We got to go back and forth through the rooms as we pleased. We were lucky because it wasn't busy when we first got there, but got really busy as we were coming to the end of our time. It was fun, especially for free. I am sad that this was the end of the exhibit and hope that they have other kid friendly exhibits again.
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