Perot Museum of Nature and Science (part one)

11.08.13

This four-story unique architectural building is located near downtown Dallas and opened their doors almost one year ago.  Did you notice enclosed glass escalator on the side of the building.

Jill and I had to learn the hard way about this place so I'm going to give you tips on what to do.  First of all, I'm not 100% positive since I've only been to this place once but Fridays might be the popular day for schools to take field trips and visit this place.  There were a lot of school buses when we arrived at 10am!  However, all of the school kids left after lunch so my advice is to visit this place after lunch.  Beck was out of school today and I wanted to do something fun on his day off.  Fortunately, my sweet friend, Dawn, is a member of this place and told me she would give me tickets so I took her up on her offer.  After parking in the garage across the street, we met Aunt Katherine, Lola and Otto before going into the building.  I think the kids would have been happy playing outside with the green frogs and the giant xylophone.

Unfortunately, Lola was not feeling well so they ended up leaving.

Ok kids, let's go inside and check it out!

We thought it was a good idea to start on the 4th floor and make our way down.  Maybe that would have worked out better if there weren't a million school kids running around.  I was sweating from trying to keep up with Beck, Kinsey and Marcus.  Plus, it was hot up there!  I will tell you the best thing about the 4th floor is the bird simulation and this is how it works...you stand in front of a fairly large screen while wearing 3-d glasses then spread your arms out like a bird, tilt to the right to fly to the right, tilt to the left to fly to the left, lean forward to dive down and lean back to soar up.

On the 3rd floor, our kids loved the hands-on glacier and a tornado made of steam. 

We finally ended up on the 1st floor which is where I recommend starting.  We spent so much time here and the kids loved it!  First of all, it has this really cool video area.  You can go into an enclosed room and do a number of things such as kick a soccer ball, throw a football, shoot a basketball, etc.  Beck kicked a soccer ball then we watched a video of him in slow motion which was so neat.  The other cool thing in this room is a long running area and you can race against a dinosaur or an Olympic runner which is on the screen next to the track.  I have a video of Marcus racing against T-Rex!

The final room that we ended up staying in the most was filled with a grocery store which was Kinsey's favorite and it also included a delivery truck.

Climbing wall and slide.

The other thing they loved in this room is the conveyor belt.  They worked so hard putting soft blocks on the conveyor belt then turning the wheel to get the blocks up.  There were a few different levels then one person would drop the blocks from the top to the very bottom and the cycle started all over again.  It was so awesome!!!