Discovery Gateway & Clark Planetarium

Okay, so this was actually last week's Friday fun day activity.  My kids had a blast at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum.  Both of them absolutely loved the "Beehive" which is an exhibit full of different things to do with plastic balls.  Their favorite, along with most other kids there, is putting the balls in the air wind tunnel that blows their face and hair when they open it to slip the balls in.  They then watched their balls go through the clear tubes before falling into the main ball catching area.  They can also drop balls into holes that make different sounds, or in a some device that makes the balls go somewhere or do something fun.  Of course this is also the most crowded exhibit with the least amount of parent supervision, so it also seems to make me the most frustrated as my kids are not the most assertive kids and I have to intervene to get some other kids to let mine have a turn after umpteen minutes.  But my kids had fun.  Clara even liked the wind blowing on her from the wind tubes.   I should mention Spencer insisted on wearing his pirate hat and it wasn't worth a fight...


The two kids putting balls into the wind tunnel



Tessa getting blown!



Then there's the Kid's Eye View.  Tessa loved the grocery store, buying all sorts of stuff.  They have carts and baskets and shelves full of stuff you'd find at a regular grocery store.  They also have cash registers.  Spencer wasn't interested in this but loved filling up the car with gas and climbing up onto the life-sized horse.  He also liked trying to climb the climbing wall, although he never made it up more than a couple steps.  Both of the kids enjoyed the garden, planting and picking the plastic vegetables.  They also had fun playing in the little house and at the kids construction site.  There is also a fun looking water section where you put plastic ping pong balls in the water and watch where the water takes them.  It was so crowded here that my kids didn't even want to try to get a turn and we went for the elevators.

While the bottom level is more "play" the upper level is more "discovery" I think.  Up here Spencer's favorite was a thing where he could basically make a stop motion animated film.  Tessa's favorite was the stage.  They had a full stage with various backdrops and three different lighting effects.  They also had 4 girl dress-ups and 2 boy dress ups.  I mention the number because we had to wait a while before one of the girl dress-ups became available.  That being said Tessa had a blast dancing around, switching backdrops, and hiding in the curtains.  Spencer enjoyed the lights.  And, to my amazement, Spencer even agreed to dance with Tessa when she was looking for a "handsome prince".  Usually this request is vehemently refused by Spencer at home. Up here there is also a large section of hands-on activities like puzzles, building blocks, magnets that spin each other, and a shaking table.  The kids loved the shaking table as they built towers and buildings out of the blocks and then turned on the shaker and watched them tumble.  Clara thought it was hilarious when I sat her on the shaking table and turned it on.

The kids also loved the helicopter on the terrace.  It's an acual helicopter, I believe from Life Flight.  The kids loved riding in the back and pretending to fly in the cockpit as well as pushing the buttons in the control room.  Then there's a section where you can pretend to be a newscaster, which didn't interest my kids, or stand in front of a green screen with something going on behind you.  My kids liked standing in the snowstorm and the emploding building.

As fun as the museum was, I believe it is overpriced for what you get.  It was $8.50 per person over the age of 1.  At that high of prices, non-participating parents should be allowed in free.  Or they should at least discount ages 1-3 to like $5.00 as they're too little for like half the stuff there.  They do have buy 1 get 1 free coupons they send out in the Utah ad newspaper that comes on Tuesdays with the Harmon's ads.  Even with that it's too pricey for us to go to more than a couple times a year, but if you're going to go make sure you have a coupon!

Because the Clark Planetarium is across the street and it's free to look around (only the movie and light shows cost $), we decided to briefly stop by there as well.  Spencer is very much into space exploration and Tessa loves to play on Mars and walk on the moon.  They're small exhibits made to look like Mars and the moon with a pathway the kids can go on and a little blurb you can read.  Spencer also loves looking at the pretend Saturn on the telescopes and doing the light bulb experiment where you see how hard you have to turn the thing to create enough electricity for different types of light bulbs to turn on.  There's about 20-40 minutes worth of stuff to look at depending on the age of the kids, but my kids had fun.