Monthly Archives: January 2012

The Works

Today we visited The Works, a science and technology museum located in Newark, OH. We went down with my parents, my sister, brother-in-law and niece.

Cousins at The Works

Cousins at The Works

This museum was chock-full of activities for little kids. From the minute they entered the building to the minute they left, the girls were playing, experimenting, and learning. We got to try playing a theremin and a xylophone bench. We built and tested marble tracks, built some circuits, learned about light, prisms, and lasers, tested our vertical leap, played in a kid-sized city with grocery store and doctor’s office, watched a glass-blowing demonstration, explored an interurban railway car, and learned about Licking County history. Catherine said her favorite parts were building circuits and the Invent Lab, where she got to build a robot from salvaged computer parts (this was probably one of my favorite parts, too).

Papa and Catherine Dissect a Keyboard

Papa and Catherine Dissect a Keyboard

The museum is in downtown Newark, which is about 25 minutes from Columbus, and about 40 minutes from Mount Vernon, where my parents live. Admission for the four of us came to $20 – $7 for each adult and $3 for each child. I would definitely recommend a visit for anybody with kids who lives in the Central Ohio area, or anybody paying the area a visit.

To see all of the photos from our visit, visit the full gallery.

Joining a show already in progress…

(The Wood family is currently in Ohio, staying with Peter’s parents, and visiting with them, Peter’s sister, brother-in-law, and niece, and doing the things that there are to do in Central Ohio. We join their activity already in progress…)

We’ve been here in Mount Vernon since December 29, and have been enjoying spending time with family. We celebrated my Mom’s birthday, did another Christmas celebration in Mount Vernon, visited a train, celebrated my niece’s birthday, celebrated New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.

Catherine admires some art

Catherine admires some art

Puzzling Painting

Puzzling Painting

Today, Catherine, Esme, Rebecca and I took off for a family trip down to the Columbus Museum of Art. I haven’t been there since I was a kid, and apparently it’s recently been overhauled. We had a very enjoyable visit to the museum. Nearly every gallery had some kind of kid-friendly activity, whether a matching game with photos from the current gallery, or a puzzle of a painting in the gallery, assembled with the actual painting on the wall for reference.

The museum is a very manageable size, and yet maintains an impressive collection. It even has an area devoted exclusively to kids, the Wonder Room.

Wonder Room

Wonder Room

We spent a little over two hours at the museum, and the girls enjoyed every part of it, except for the part where we had to leave! Since both girls are under 6, and AAA offers a BOGO discount, we only paid $10 for the four of us! I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the Columbus area.

Tomorrow we’ll be headed to Newark with my family to visit The Works, a science and technology museum with lots of hands-on activities for the kids. Looking forward to another day of exploring and expanding young minds, and having fun with family!

If you head over to our gallery, you can see the daily photo galleries from our trip so far. Far more photos than I’ve included in this blog post!