February 24th, 2009 larry
I’ve been to the Kohl and Chicago Children’s Museums MANY times. I’ve been to children’s museums in Boston, San Francisco and Miami. I pride myself on being “in-the-know” when it comes to children’s entertainment. So how is it that I’ve missed this place. I can’t believe it has taken me four years since the birth of my son to visit the DuPage Children’s Museum! This is an outstanding place to take your kids. Small, yet packed with unique activities, it is worth the trip to the western suburb of Naperville.
I can be jaded. I’ve seen and done a lot of fun kid’s stuff. Yet this place had surprises and I was impressed. Most children’s museums have a water area, and so does DuPage. What sets this water area apart is the BUBBLE section. Too much fun. Kids can use over sized wands, big hoops, and tubes blowing air to make the bubbles. They can also stand inside a giant hoop that is lifted up around them by pulling a rope. If they pull the rope gently enough a huge bubble forms all around them. It was fantastic.
Another thing that all the museums offer is a building/construction area. What’s cool about DuPage is that their Construction House offers real tools and wood to work with. I was shocked. They handed my four year old a saw - I kid you not - a real hand saw. Granted it was about as dull as possible, but did his face light up when he realized there were genuine saws, hammers, nails, hand drills and screwdrivers that he could use. Wearing goggles is required and there are great volunteers who help the children.
Other highlights include Airworks, an area that includes a giant wind tunnel that the kids can walk in, air guns that move different spinning objects, and a few different types of suction tubes. The suction tubes were a lot of fun. The kids have to figure out which tubes pull objects in and which ones blow the objects out. They can change the direction of the air flow and shoot soft balls and scarves around the maze of tubes and then out at each other. We spent a great deal of time in the Make It Move area. The Kinetic Motion Machine is a feature where children control the actions of pin balls running through a complicated series of tracks and tricks. There is so much going on in the machine that I was fascinated watching and trying to figure out the patterns of movement. So as you can imagine the children were enthralled. This section also provided many hands on opportunities to build tracks for cars and runs for balls. There are blocks, pipes, tubes, and ramps that offer endless options for children’s creativity.
As a parent it is tough to keep children of varying ages happy, but at Dupage it can be done quite easily. Airworks and Make it Move are excellent examples of how this museum integrates activities for different age groups. I watched four year-olds and eight year-olds playing side-by-side, neither feeling out of place. Different levels of development are catered to side-by-side which makes this a very parent-friendly place to visit.
There is an area in the basement with machines that sell snacks and drinks, but if you will be wanting to eat a meal during your visit I suggest you pack your own food. There are plenty of tables to eat at while you take a break from all the playing.
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Donna
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February 18th, 2009 larry
If you grew up in the Chicago land area there’s a good chance that you spent a childhood vacation in Lake Delavan at the Lake Lawn Resort. Since then the resort has gotten a $40 million makeover that keeps the nostalgia while updating and adding luxury to the property. They have kept the lodgey Wisconsin atmosphere which includes indoor and outdoor pools, many kids activities, a bar and restaurants on site, and video arcade. We spent Valentine’s Day weekend at Lake Lawn and re-discovered a favorite childhood getaway.
First of all, if you bring your kids to Lake Lawn you have to get a loft room. Our kid thought he was in a tree house and we almost could not get him out of the room because he just wanted to play in his loft, use his private bathroom, and watch his own flat screen TV. Of course, he figured out you could also throw socks and towels over the loft wall onto Mom and Dad’s bed.
We weren’t sure how eventful Lake Lawn would be in the winter, but they have thought of everything. First, the entire lodge is connected by tunnels. From Saturday at 2pm until we left on Sunday we did not step outside. We started by hitting the video arcade that had most of our favorites: basketball shots, pinball, the Nickelodeon racing game, and Galaga for dad. And from there we hit the indoor pool. The pool is really big and it needs to be since kids were hanging out in the pool from 7:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night. There was even an hour of family bingo pool side.
I think what impressed us most about the resort was the creativity of all of the different activities they had for the kids and families. There was a broomball game and ice skating out on frozen Lake Delavan, arts and crafts in the great room, and a Kids Zone with games. The resort organizers also set up a large movie screen where kids could watch movies (we saw Madagascar 2) and play Wii. There was a decent crowd of kids waiting to bowl, play Guitar Hero, or play baseball on the large screen. On Friday and Saturday nights the Kids Zone offers a drop off service for children 4-12 years old. Parents can leave their kids in a camp-like atmosphere while they enjoy some time together. The cost is $30 for one child and $20 for each additional family member, including arcade tokens, pizza dinner and ice cream.
The staff is great with parents and kids. We had dinner at the casual Lookout Bar and taught our kid to play pool (his favorite part was putting the chalk on the sticks and blowing on it). They had great bar food, some local beers, and phenomenal buffalo wings. On Sunday morning we did brunch at the upscale Frontier Restaurant which includes all you can drink Champagne, great omelets, and a fantastic desert bar - cookies, chocolate mousse, brownies, eclairs, and they might have had something that wasn’t chocolate but we wouldn’t know.
On Valentine’s weekend, there were definitely couples trying to get away but it seemed that families and kids really rule the Lodge. We had a great weekend, great food, went swimming twice, and spent $20 trying to win a stuffed Spiderman doll in the arcade. Now through March 31, 2009 they have a “Kids Eat Free” Special and we highly recommend this for a quick winter trip that is only an hour and a half away. We will definitely be visiting in the spring.
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Larry and Donna
Mom Says: One of my strongest memories of Lake Lawn Lodge (that was what the Resort was called back in the day) was the loft room. Now, as a mom, I still love the loft room, but for completely different reasons. All of the guest rooms have been completely renovated. They have a luxurious lodge feel with great baths that include granite counters, a deep jetted tub and an awesome rain shower. The happiness it brought my son was pretty good too.
Dad Says: Though there is a fitness center you won’t need it because your kids will make you race down the indoor tunnels and ramps all day long, play broomball and ice skate, and swim constantly. It was non-stop action and fun.
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February 11th, 2009 larry
iTales.com
Before checking it out, I was expecting iTales.com to be a website selling audio books. Yet as I listened to sample stories on iTales I realized this was something different - it was a storytelling website. iTales provides professional storytellers (and fledging storytellers as well) and outlet to post their craft. I was struck by the uniqueness of the way the stories were told, more then the stories themselves. Listening to the style of the individual storyteller was what makes this site’s content so fun. I especially enjoyed “Jack Goes Up,” ($0.99) a contemporary version of Jack and the Beanstalk by Regi Carpenter. It was told in the form of a folksy song sung with guitar accompaniment. Delivered in a more traditional spoken-word manner, “The Prince and the Soccer Ball” ($2.99) by Donna Washington is a fun story about a young prince who loves to play soccer. The storyteller has a unique voice and has incorporated interjections by children into the tale - very enjoyable. All songs have samples so you can listen before you buy. Prices run from $.99 to several dollars per story.
iTales is filled with all kinds of down loadable stories. Arranged in categories such as Kid’s, Laughter & Fun, or Holidays, you can narrow your search by seeing age recommendations, length and price. From toddlers to teens to adults, there is plenty to check out. For my four year old and me, I think these downloads will be great to listen to in the car, at home while doing craft projects, or while traveling. It’s a great change of pace from the same old music we’ve been listening to.
If you or your children are aspiring storytellers, iTales.com allows individuals to upload MP3’s for consideration by the site. After you submit your story, iTales will review it. If your story is selected you will receive a 40% commission every time it is purchased. This is a great creative outlet for those of you with the talent. Give it a try.
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kidthing
As my son has gotten older we are spending more and more time on the computer doing projects and playing games. Usually we are on websites like pbskids.com, playhousedisney.com, or any site that sells toys. I do love these sites and think the content is educational, but they are intrinsically connected to TELEVISION. Sometimes I feel like there is too much of these characters in my child’s brain already! We also use educational CD-ROM’s, but the drawback with these disks is that the content is stagnant. Once you’ve played the games a few times your kid has memorized the answers. So how do you best utilize the computer for your kids?
Recently we connected with a new company called kidthing. They offer an ever expanding array of games, creative arts, books, and videos for children 3-11 years old. kidthing is a digital media player created just for kids. Even though you download all the content for kidthing online, it is not a web browser. It lives on your computer, you control all the content, there are no ads, and you do not need to be online to use the content you have purchased. The media player is free and you make purchases through the player, much like you do on iTunes. Each piece of content costs anywhere from $.99 to $6.99 and each offers a sample so you can get the feel for it before you make the purchase.
Currently kidthing is highlighting our new President and Democracy. The “Look Who’s President!” Jigsaw Puzzle is a free download for kids aged 4-12. They can personalize the puzzle with a photo of themselves and solve it over and over again. There is also “Our Great Nation Concentration” ($2.99) for ages 4-8. This game is a 16 tile grid that randomly shuffles the images every time you play, revealing different famous American images and giving fun facts at the end of every game. “Democracy Word Search” ($0.99) for ages 5-8 builds vocabulary and observation skills. It offers 2 levels of play and randomly shuffles the puzzles each time you play.
Aside from Democracy themed items there are many other games. My media player came with a free math game called Mathketball which teaches adding numbers from 1 to 6. You can also buy Addition, Subtraction and Multiplication in 4 levels each. There are shape, color and spelling games as well. The Creative Arts comprises mainly of Coloring Pages in different themes ($0.99 - $3.99).
A huge component of kidthing are books read on/by your media player. Some stories are called “page turners.” For example I downloaded “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” ($5.99) which reads the story to your child with the option of automatically turning the page or letting the child manually drag and click to turn the pages. This was fun, but I really liked the “video book” of “The Ugly Duckling” ($5.99) even more. This style of book reads to your child but the words light up as they are said. This dynamic subtitling is a fantastic pre-reading aid. Another stand out was the “Dr. Seuss ABC’s Activity Book” ($6.99), which combines all the great Dr. Seuss alphabet rhymes with animation and interactive learning games.
“Mrs. P Read Me a Story” struck me as a slightly strange offering in the Video section. For $0.99 the Grannyish Mrs. P sits in a rocking chair and reads classic fairy tales and fables like Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and The Frog Prince. I’m guessing this is one of those things that mesmerizes kids that adults don’t understand. “Animal Atlas Born to Be Wild” ($1.99), “What Makes a Fish a Fish?” ($1.99), and “Dive into Diversity” ($1.99) are traditional educational wildlife videos that kids will love.
Go to www.kidthing.com to check it out. The media player is free and there are several free downloads to get you started. We’ve got a few more months of winter, I hope this helps make it more fun for you and the kids.
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February 4th, 2009 larry
The Discovery Center Museum in Rockford was selected by Child Magazine as the nation’s 4th best children’s museum. It is large, and we really mean really large — covering 2 stories, and 250 hands-on exhibits, including a TV News Studio, Planetarium, Art Studio, Robotics Lab, Outdoor Science Park, special area for children under 6 and much more. The parking is free and the admission fee is only $6 per adult, $5 per child. However, the Discovery Center Museum is part of the ACM Reciprocal Program, so if you belong to the Chicago Children’s Museum or Kohl Children’s Museum admission to this museum is free.
We took our 4 year old Grandson and he could have stayed another three days. The exhibits were very engaging. He didn’t run from exhibit to exhibit, but actually went to one, played, and tried to figure out how it worked. Amazing. The pulley exhibit taught him how different size pulleys with different lengths of rope make it harder or easier to lift different size wooden blocks. Of course, there are car exhibits. There was an exhibit with several different inclined ramps (steep, medium, flat) which taught him about gravity and how hard it is to push cars up a hill.
The News Studio is probably a little better for the older kids. They have a studio set up and a desk where you can pretend to be a news anchor. There is a camera and you can watch yourself on the TV. Our kid saw himself on the TV and decided to make funny faces and stick out his tongue instead of read sports scores. The family crest activity was fun because they gave you King Arthur style shield and crests and you draw letters, cars, and other items to make it your own. He drew his name on the shield and it hangs on his wall in his bedroom.
As usual, racing cars was a huge winner. But this time he dropped cars and balls down long tracks with hills and obstacles. The point was to see how the hills and obstacles slowed down the cars. Again, very educational. He was really paying attention to these exhibits where there were choices and was really starting to understand impact of hills, inclines, weight, gravity, and size. Another good examples was the 8 foot crane that the kids can operate. You learn to pick stuff up and put them in trucks and wood pallets. Different size blocks were easier or harder to move.
Following in his father’s footsteps, he enjoyed the sports area. The favorite exhibit in sports was a tennis racket encased in glass. You could then shoot a tennis ball at the racket and watch how different racket angles change the way the ball rebounds off it. He seemed to stay forever at his favorite activity, the wind tunnel tubes. There he used some objects, scarves and different sized balls, to see which would come out of the tube the fastest. Also, by closing some tubes and opening others, he was able to have the objects travel in different paths.
We were there for about 3 hours, but we never had time to play in the water area, to work the flight simulator, or try the magnets in water. Since it is winter, the outdoor science park was closed. So you can just imagine how much there is to do at this place. The activities at this museum will certainly entertain and challenge even up to 10 year olds. There is no food available or a lunchroom in which to eat, so bring your own light snack and relax on one of the benches.
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Grandpa says: It’s a long drive, 1 ½ hours up 90 from the Northwest Suburbs.
Grandma says: It’s well worth the drive! I can’t wait to explore the outdoor park.
Our Grandson says: Promise that we go back soon so I can play some more.
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