As I have said before Jackson is a great community. It is full of things to do with and without children, and occasionally those things are free. Every first Sunday of the month for example, is free admittance to the National Museum of Wildlife Art. So Sunday March 6th, I again teamed up with the best buddy and her group of kids to take part in such a great opportunity.
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| Lulu sculpting a snow block. |
The 'theme' of this Sunday was snow sculptures. They had an instructor and plenty of volunteers to help the kiddos carve the blocks of snow into masterpieces, even a band to keep the adults entertained. All six of the kids started out on the blocks of snow, but quickly lost interest (its not a task really suitable for toddlers) So we headed inside and left the snow to those more interested in sculpting. Inside the museum they were serving snacks of cookies, gold fish and a snack mix, with Hot Chocolate and Apple Cider to drink. We skipped the refreshments and promised the hoard of complaints that if they all handled themselves well in the museum we would get snacks before we left. Thus encouraged, we set off to explore.
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Emma sculpting a start.
(She stood up at the last second) |
In order to keep the 6 kids in attendance happy and under control, we had to review a few rules, and to make it as utterly simple as possible we just asked them all to keep their hands in their pockets.
The kids did a great job when walking through the museum, they pointed out what paintings and sculptures they liked the best, took guesses at the odd and unknown animals, and asked a bunch of questions. Adanna and I both did our part to encourage their curiosity, explaining that one person had to sit and paint these images, sometimes taking days and even weeks, just from their imagination.
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| Jack sculpting the snow, his art was bigger than the block. |
In the museum there is a small room where they show wildlife videos. We stopped here and watched a bit of the "predators and prey" video. Again all the kids asked questions and we did the best we could to answer them. We didn't make it through the whole movie, instead we opted to see the rest of the museum. Eventually we came to the 'Bison room" where to our amazement and the kids utter fascination there was one statue that we were allowed to touch, it of course was of a Bison!
We then headed to the Elk refuge viewing room, and helped each kid up to the telescope to see the elk.
Up next is the best thing a museum has to offer kids! A Play Room!
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Art at the Art museum
Ethan, Issac, Emma, Alexa |
This room is sectioned up into four parts, the art center, the dramatic play area, reading station, and the stage. The art room is full of art supplies and interesting and fun elements that teach a few things along the way. We set the kids free and gave them about a half hour to explore, the older kids, spent most of their time in the art room drawing, tracing and rubbing images to take home with them. Lulu and Jack bounced in and out of every room, spending most of their time in costume, acting out the animals they represented.
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Lucy lounging with Max
(the OTHER Wild Thing) |
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| Issac, Ethan, Alexa, Emma Lucy and Jack |
At the end of the day we stopped and had some cookies and coco as promised. All the kids loved it, and asked to come back again! For more information on the National Museum of Wildlife Art visit their site at
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