Our Trip to Herrett Center for Arts and Science

We had a small bunch of daycare kiddos one day and decided to visit our local science museum. After the first time Alex and I visited Herrett Center I knew this was a place I wanted our daycare kids to see.

My first impression of the center was one of pleasant surprise. Reason # (1) it was FREE, reason # (2) it was actually a nice little museum with well done exhibits and diverse themes, unlike many-a-boring local history museums we've encountered in the past that hold little interest for preschoolers, and reason # (3) it was FREE! (did I mention that part?)

The pictures can't really do it justice, though. There are displays of dinosaur skeletons everywhere, a ginormous woolly mammoth, dino poop balls- always gets giggles, beautiful samples, some rather large, of locally mined stones and crystals, an art gallery, a dedicated children's area, lots of fascinating fossils, an ancient technologies gallery with artifacts as old as two million years, live reptiles including a large iguana and boa, lots of interactive 'field' activity areas for older kids to use microscopes, computers, and ancient tools they can practice using, a huge collection of ancient weapons and fishing tools, including the largest collection of arrow heads and spears I've personally ever seen, a wonderful Mayan exhibit with larger-than-life replicas of stone art, some local ancient Idaho historical artifacts, a human skeleton replica (I assume??) 'buried' and partially exposed for a great (and creepy) hands-on experience.       

Huntington Canyon Mammoth

A dinosaur skull and various bones.

The kids loved touching the teeth!

A fun video on loop about the galaxy.

Ancient drills. The kids never seemed to tire of this activity. It gave me an idea to have the kids make some simple tools like this drill over the summer. 

Skeleton man. No creepy factor for these guys!

Back to the drills.

I'm not a fishing fan but this exhibit was really neat.

The power of poop!

And back again to the drills...

In the children's area they had fun puzzles. These were great to keep the younger ones busy while the big kids kept drilling, and drilling, and drilling...

The art gallery wasn't my favorite, nor the kids. It would have been nice to see some kid-friendly displays here, but still a great learning opportunity.