Belle's Butterfly Dreams: Playing is Her Job!

Last Friday we took the day off and took Belle to the National Museum of Play. We love this place. It is huge and there is so much to see and do, and the best part is kids don’t realize they are learning while they play. When I was in school for teaching, I remember one of our professors made the statement that a child’s job is to play. Playing is how children learn and it is incredibly true. Belle's job everyday is to go to The Bug and play. Play until her little heart is content. And then to come home and play some more.

We choose to go to the museum during a school day so that it wouldn’t be too busy. It was actually pretty busy for it being right after the holidays and the first week back to school. Belle enjoyed Sesame Street and playing in Elmo’s World. She drove Elmo and Cookie Monster in a cab and made her own music on the pipe organ.

Belle checking out the Sesame Street door.

Belle and I, she was more interseted in seeing herself on the TV.

Belle playing the Pipe Organ.

Past Sesame Street is a grocery store. It is sponsored by the major grocery store in our area and surrounding areas, Wegmans. Belle loved it. She grabbed her cart went shopping without us telling her what she had to do. She picked out her 5 items, you are only allowed 5 items at a time, by herself. When she was happy with her grocery list we headed to the check out. She proceeded to place all of her items on the conveyer belt and was able to check out all of her own items as well. She scanned all 5 of her items, including a block of cheese, a loaf of bread, two red peppers, and a cucumber. Yes these are the items my child picked. Never mind there were aisles set up with everything from cereal to ice cream to baby food. We apparently wanted red peppers. Once we scanned our items and printed our receipt we had to put back all of our items. Belle left grandma and I behind and headed right back to where she got everything. She put everything back from where she got it and put her cart back. I can’t believe how independent she is. We continued on to the other exhibits skipping a couple as they were geared to a little bit older than her.

We headed to the reading land where she loved the fantasy section. She played in a garden matching colors and shapes. She played in Snow White’s house and made a crown. We headed over to the adventure section where she played in a “sand” pit. The sand were little white pellets. She loved it. Eventually we moved on and headed upstairs. Upstairs is a game section. Mainly video games, old and new. The Hubs looked around while Belle found a giant lite brite. Getting her away from that was a hassle. Note to self: start searching for a lite brite. They also have the toy museum on the second floor. We enjoyed looking around but Belle was about done.

Belle playing with the giant Lite Brite.

We headed back downstairs and into the Field of Play room. A lot of much older stuff for Belle but she enjoyed the distorted house but would go in the one that made things look small on one side and large on the other. We found a section just right for her. It had a round bin with pegs on the inside. When you dropped those little white pellets in, it sounded like rain. We had fun with that and then Belle found some tracks. You drop a ball in and the ball follows and lands in a bucket.

Distorted House.

Once we were done with this room we decided it was time to head out instead of going back to anything. We were all hungry and Belle was getting tired. We had so much fun and I can’t wait to take Belle again. We missed a whole room completely and we still have yet to do the Butterfly Garden. We opted not to do it this trip.

We are very lucky to have this museum semi close to us. It’s still about an hour away but totally worth it for a day trip.

Tomorrow I have Belle’s first craft we did at home over the weekend!