When we pulled up, the first thing I saw was the brightly-colored 4-story building that I later found out was the planetarium. There was a grassy area with a path that lead to the main building that was filled with cows that had pictures painted on the sides of them.
When we got to the main building, I saw the name of the museum, which included "Infantil" at the end. It was a kid's museum. And so it was. Right away, all the kids were ushered in and sat down to learn about rainforest animals. They even got to go up and feel the "tree" that was there after learning about the armadillo, deer, jaguar, and several types of birds, insects, and plants. The presenter was excited and engaging, and the kids really loved trying to find all the animals hidden within the rainforest.
We then got to learn about the water cycle. The display actually rained and had water pooling and flowing to form little lakes and rivers.
After that, we switched presenters, and were taught about what to do in an earthquake. They then got to go into the little house and practice, with the floor moving like an earthquake. After the kids, they had us teachers go up to feel the earthquake, and the strongest one was actually a little bit scary. Mia, who's only 2, was in the first group that was up there, and actually panicked on the last one. I caught that on film, and will be including it in the video I'm going to put together of the whole trip.
We also got to learn about the human skeleton, and had Lindsay go up and ride the bike, and "her" skeleton appeared in the x-ray machine, moving as she rode. That was another thing I managed to catch on video, and the kids' reactions were priceless.
After that, we switched presenters again and got to learn about different careers. For this one, some of the kids were chosen to dress up in the outfits that were provided, and the presenter brought them out and interviewed them about their job. Mostly, they just had to answer yes to the questions that she was asking, but it was really cool to see the way she did it. It made it seem like the kids were the ones who sharing the information, which I'm sure made it more fun for them, and for their classmates who were watching.
The kids then got to split of by boys and girls, and the girls went shopping in the little "grocery store" while the boys got to dress up in the different job clothes. Erin and I commented on how sexist it was that the little girls were sent to shop while the boys were sent to get jobs, but they did switch after a few minutes, so the boys got a chance to learn how to shop while the girls got to try out different jobs.
After that, they did a fun activity where the kids stood in the middle of a half of a tire filled with soapy water, and a big ring went down and then up, putting them inside a giant bubble. They also got to explore a little bit, looking at these trippy mirror/window things, and playing with the skeleton. After that we had lunch. The guy that had started with us lined the kids up as the woman was putting the staff into bubbles. I went with the kids, and there was a minute where I was in charge of all 31 of them that were there that day.
There was also the moment when the guy told me something and I nodded like I knew what he said, but only got something about bathrooms, buying stuff, and 15 minutes. In the hall where he had led us, there were bathrooms, tables where we could eat, and a little store where snacks could be bought, so I pieced together the information well enough. He may never know that I only got a few words out of what he told me.
Some of the kids had brought lunches, and others did not, so they got to buy a snack from the little store, just to tie them over until later. After lunch, we headed toward the round 4-story building I had seen when we first went in. They lined up the kids by the elevator, and took them up half at a time. When they were loading the boys on, I decided not to wait for the next elevator that would take all the staff up, so I sprinted up the stairs, expecting it to be just one story up. I was about 3 flights up when I decided that it was a lot farther than I thought, but by then, I could hear the kids, so I knew I was close.
My legs were a bit shaky and I was out of breath, but I had gotten up about the same time as the elevator, so I felt accomplished. When Erin got up there, she laughed at me a bit, as she had found out it was 4 stories up after I had taken off and they were speculating. They then watched the numbers on the elevator, and had a good laugh at me for running up all those stairs. Despite this, I did choose to run down them when we were done, which was definitely worse. Today, I feel the strain with every step, and feel pain every time I go up or down a step. At least I got some exercise, right?
The planetarium was really cool. They had a big dome with a bunch of projectors that displayed the stars. They talked about finding north with the stars, pointed out Orion the Hunter (my FAVORITE constellation), and showed brilliant pictures of all the planets. They also talked about comets as well as the moon, and had a really cool ending where the stars move and fade to light as the sun rises in the east. For most of the kids, that was their favorite part. I know it was mine.
And, of course, there was the obligatory "stick your head in the cutout" picture.
After the museum, we went to Burger King for lunch. First, we let the kids run around for a while. If you've never seen 31 kids that all know each other well that just spent the morning sitting and listening and learning get turned loose on a giant jungle-gym, I'll tell you what it's like. There's a heck of a lot of screaming and kids running everywhere, and the whole time you're thinking, "if one of the kids was legitimately hurt somewhere and screaming, I would have no way of knowing."
Eventually, there was a break for lunch, where all of the kids got burgers, fries, and pop. It didn't slow them down, and they were soon back to their insanity. At one point, Jazer, one of the boys in my class, came up to me pouting showing me the blood on his arm like it was a major injury. There wasn't even enough blood to smear; he probably banged it against something and didn't even know he was bleeding until someone else pointed it out to him. Mostly, I chuckled to myself the whole way to the bathroom to clean him up. I rinsed it, washed it, and was barely finished before he was skipping back to play. It must have been miracle water!
As we were gathering the children to leave, Emy, another one of my kids, was missing a shoe. Several kids and teachers were looking all around the room. It wasn't a huge room, and all the other kids had their shoes on, so surely it couldn't be that hard to find. It took about 3 minutes of searching, but the missing shoe was found. Then, it turned out to not be her shoe that they found. Someone then figured out that her little sister and her had the same design of shoes, and little Camila was wearing the other one, so I had to take Emy's shoe off of Camila, give it to Emy, and then put Camila's right shoe back on her. Sometimes, I feel like nothing is ever easy with these kids.
Overall, it was a great day. The kids had a lot of fun, I had a lot of fun, and hopefully, they learned a few things along the way. Hopefully, I'll get the video put together soon. I have a lot of clips to go through so it could take a while, but I'll be sure to post it on here when I'm done with it.
If I remember, I'll be posting tomorrow about my Valentine's Day adventures.
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