Wonder at the Renwick Gallery

It's been quite a while since the kids and I've been to a new art exhibit or museum. In fact, I don't think we've done any art exploring since our trip to Italy. We'd planned to head down to check out the recently re-opened Renwick Gallery over Thanksgiving weekend, but everyone was too stuffed to do much besides lounge around. So we took advantage of an early dismissal yesterday and took a buddy with us to see what we would find at the opening exhibition Wonder. It might have been the best art exhibit for kids we've ever seen.

Spark!Lab at the Smithsonian Museum of American History's Hall of Invention and Innovation

There was a time not too long ago when the kids and I would spend days exploring the D.C. museums. We knew what time public parking opened up outside each one, the exhibits backwards and forwards, and where to get the best coffee. But as school and scheduled activities have expanded to fill their days, it has been years since we've seen the inside of some of our favorite museums. So we decided to spend one of the kids' recent days off checking out the new Hall of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Museum of American History, which opened just this past summer.

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Q?rius Jr. Discovery Room

Our kids have different spring breaks this year and, at first, I was excited about this -- I rarely get one-on-one time with either of them. Unfortunately, it has quickly turned into a constant source of complaints from both as each tries to make sure they get equal access to activities, dining out, etc. So I ended up taking Cam out of most of her school this week to avoid further disgruntled children (or, rather, so they can now go back to being disgruntled about nothing in particular). They haven't yet caught on to the fact that Kane will be back in school when Cam's spring break rolls around in a few weeks .... 

In any event, on one of the two days Kane and I had to ourselves, we headed down to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History to check out the super-interesting looking Q?rius exhibit. Turns out that sine many local schools weren't yet on their own spring breaks, the exhibit was closed to the public in the morning so that field trips could have access to it. Grrrrr. So instead we headed over to check out Q?rius Jr. Discovery Room (which I'm pretty sure has always been there as just a Discovery Room, but we had yet to check it out). The museum actually categorizes the Jr. Discovery Room as appropriate for K-8 aged kids and the main Q?rius exhibit for "teens and tweens." But I totally disagree (and remembered our pals at KidFriendly DC having similar thoughts). We had fun in the Discovery Room, but Kane was too old for a lot of it. I DO think it would be fun and age-appropriate for kids younger than kindergarten-age though, so I thought I'd share it here. 

The Discovery Room is loosely divided up into stations and activities, all of them hands-on and perfect for little ones to get exploring time in at a museum where pretty much everything else is hands-off. There was a fun-looking "dress up" corner, which Kane declared for "babies," but toddlers to preschool-aged kiddos would love; a few art activities (Kane loved finding the same hieroglyphics stamp set we have at home); puzzles and games to explore (we found an Egyptian game of Senet and spent almost all our time playing that); and all kinds of artifacts, animal bones, x-rays and other things to explore. If you are visiting the museum with little littles and need to take a break, I highly recommend popping in. But if you have kids kindergarten-aged and older, I think I might skip it and head to the main Q?rius exhibit. We're headed there next!