What a treasure!

The Children' Discovery Museum in Bloomington, Illinois is a wonderful place! Noah and Levi made it there twice while we were in Illinois and we plan to go there regularly when we visit grandma and grandpa Schrag. Having never been to a children's museum, Ben and I weren't sure what to expect, but this place blew our lowly expectations out of the water. Noah and Levi both had such a good time and there were so many fun and educational activities for them to try and experience.


The second floor was mostly dedicated to agriculture. Noah was in heaven! His first question when he climbed into the tractor was where is the door, his second question was "where is the loader?". So, maybe all the agricultural stuff wasn't "new" to him, but he loved playing on it and I'm sure he learned a thing or two.


Noah helped milk the cows. There was a button to press when you were ready for the milkers to start and it really looked like milk was coming out and going into the tank - just like at grandpa Schmidt's farm!




Ben and I just laughed when we saw that the cows even had ear tags - pretty realistic!


The combine was impressive. It had a split header - one half was a row crop header for corn, the other half was "normal" for cutting beans.


In the cab of the combine, you could turn the key and a big TV screen came on in front of you with footage of corn being picked. It was done at just the right angle to really give the feeling that you were driving a combine in a field and picking corn. I was really impressed. Noah just kept turning the key...


Another look at the header and the soybean and corn plants.


On the third floor was the art area. Ben and I were thoroughly impressed with the design of this space! There were 5 or 6 stations like the one pictured above. The entire area was enclosed in plexiglass. The paint stations were at kid height, and had just a little bit of water running through the tray. So, kids could come in, put on a smock, pick up a paint brush and start to paint on the plexiglass wall. Then, they could use the spray bottle and a squeegee to clean it off.


It was a ton of fun.




Ben's masterpiece...from the outside of the paint area, looking in.


Noah's favorite part of painting was squirting the water on the wall and then using the squeegee to wipe it off.


Levi had a bawl, just crawling around and pulling himself up to all sorts of fun activities.




There is a construction site right next door to the museum and the boys were pretty impressed by what was happening outside.






Noah spent a lot of time in the water play area. There were so many possibilities of things to do with this water. Thank goodness for the blue smock - otherwise he would have been soaked!




Levi loved having so many Levi's to look at!


More water play.


So many Noah's!