SI Museum

Friday we went to Trader Joe's for the 1st time and fell in love with their prices..they have all natural and organic food for a really great price... the only draw back is that it is at least a 45 minute drive from here...we also did some more errands. Yesterday was A and J's dance class, J is making more friends and A is getting better daily, she loves to dance as well. On the way home we stopped at a green market and bought some good fruits and veggies from local farms. They had fresh currants which I have not eaten in years... it bought back memories from when I was a little girl in Hungary :)....

Today we played tourist in the city... we woke up early, went over some letter sounds with A, got some sandwiches and snacks, and took the train to the Staten island ferry in Manhattan. The kids were so excited, we sat outside and saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, sail boats, a light house, we even saw some jelly fish in the water. After the 25 minute ride we got off in S.I. and walked a few blocks to the SI Museum. We have never been there and I wasn't sure what to expect.. I saw it on line yesterday when I was searching for museums in NYC. The admission was $2 for adults and free for the kids, and it was great! They had so many interesting things there, we saw dinosaur foot prints (real ones fossilized) rocks that you could look at up close with a microscope... hundreds of bugs, beetles, butterflies etc... in a glass case which F loved. There were preserved frogs, a mole, flying squirrel, and other things that were stored in a jar filled with alcohol for 100 years which looked like real live animals. These things were private collections of men who had lived in SI years ago that were donated. We also got to see a big piece of a real meteor that hit Arizona 50,000 yrs ago. J was fascinated , she has been interested in meteors for quite a while now and loves to explain how meteors killed all the dinosaurs.
The second floor had an exhibit on energy saving bikes and other cars, the kids also go to do some playing with some toys that they made into various objects that moved. In the basement was a nice exhibit on the Lenape Indians who were the first inhabitants of SI thousands of years ago, they had a cool mastodon molar and leg bone on display as well.

I'd have to say the best part of the museum was in the 2 hours that we were there only 2 other people came in. We had the place to ourselves and it was so great, no pushing children, no loud voices to speak over..... F especially loved that, he gets very annoyed with 'school' children who do not know how to behave in a museum, zoo, aquarium... anywhere that we happen to go.

After we were done we walked back to the ferry and A fell asleep :), took the train home and resumed our daily activities.. all done playing tourist.