Children's Museum of Houston...DON'T Miss It!

If you are anywhere near the Children's Museum of Houston, and have children, you have to take a day to visit.  We spent 4 1/2 hours there Saturday, and could have spent 4 1/2 more.  

The museum is clean, bright, well-planned, and full of wonderful, age-appropriate, educational and fun activities.  In the warmer weather there is a outdoor water park.  

Here kids learn about animals, matter, motion, gravity, ecology, recycling, and the human body, 

for starters.

outdoor puppet theater

tracks and balls

Kids' Hall

 When you enter the museum you walk through Kids' Hall, a spectacular, visually inviting area that, on the day we visited, had many activities to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.  Here you also find the Parent Resource Library and Fresh Cafe.

Here is the story behind the three sections of vintage pedal cars.  Fabulous.

How many different phones can you see?

Our favorite part of the museum is Kidtropolis, USA.  Kidtropolis is a Main Street where you find a bank, TV station, police and rescue, city hall, atm machines, restaurant, grocery market, vet, art studio and post office. Here, children run the town.  Pick a job, dress up, get paid, go to the ATM, or the bank.  Enjoy a meal or shop for food.  Bring your pet to the doc, or send a package in the mail.  Everything is made for the kids.  (If only schools had this city.)

Chef Brendan was in his glory.

Do you want to anchor, or produce?  Or maybe, be the camera person?

Down another level is Invention Convention and Cyberchase.  In invention convention, kids, and parents, use cups, straws, pipe cleaners, tape, scissors, paper, legos, and various other items to construct flying, rolling, spinning, and balancing objects, and then, test them out in various wind tunnels, ramps, and moving gadgets.

Cyberchase has all the familiar characters of the favorite math-themed show from PBS.  Just outside that room is the 35 foot tall, 3-story high, Power Tower, and the rock wall, all part of the section called PowerPlay!

Save this area for last.  They'll be wiped.

And here's the great part...

The fee for admission is $9.00 per person.  

OR

Free visits for all on Thursdays from 5pm - 8pm.

OR

FREE entrance for Bank of America card holders on the first weekend of each month.

Worth. Every. Penny.

Houston Museum of Natural Science

A visit to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  

Houston has many museums, most of which are within walking distance from one another.  

Parking is free right next to the Hermann Park Gardens.

Adult Ticket: $15
Child Ticket: $10
College Students with ID: $10
Seniors (62+): $10
Military (with ID): $10
Groups (20+): $7
School Groups: $3.50

Thursdays the museum offers free admission from 2 - 5pm (winter) and 3 - 6pm (summer).

NASA: Space Center Houston

We paid a visit to NASA at Space Center Houston.  We purchased our tickets online thus obtaining the $5.00 discount per ticket.  (With, of course a $1.50 fee for the convenience of buying online).  Our total for five was $79.25.

The center opens at 10:00am.  Get there when it opens.  Right behind us were three school buses.

The Space Center's newest attraction is Angry Birds Space.  This of course is the first thing the kids will want to do.  It's basically a McDonald's Play-place-ish type of attraction.  There is a younger area for children under 4 and a more elaborate side for children over age 4 but under 58".  Enjoyable for the kids and a good place to let them shake off some sillies.

The very NEXT thing you need to do is hop onto the Tram tour.  Save a good 2 hours for this ride.

The tram takes you throughout the NASA Johnson Space Center complex to three main buildings, which can change depending on the day.  We visited Mission Control where the Apollo missions were conducted.

Apollo Era Mission Control.  Notice the Red Rotary Phone.  This wasn't a direct line to Batman.
 It was however a direct line to the Department of Defense.

Apollo Era Mission Control: the mission patches are displayed on the right side of the room.

The Mission Patches for Apollo 1 and the Challenger Space Shuttle mission (which were both controlled from this room) will forever  remain on the left side of the room.  These missions are still active in the eyes of NASA.  

The next building was the Space Station Mockup and Training Facility, or building 9, a training center for astronauts.  Here we saw the Robonauts, the ISS (International Space Station) training pods, and the Orion mockup.

  

The Orion Space Capsule was created to allow humans to travel  farther into the solar system than they've ever been before.  Orion will take its passengers to the moon, asteroids, and Mars.  Orion's test launch will be in 2014.
Save up to buy your tickets!

Robonaut, a dexterous humanoid robot, created to assist astronauts and go where it is too dangerous for the astronauts to venture.  There are currently 4 Robonauts, with more in the works.

We also visited the home of the Saturn V rocket at Rocket Park. 

The Saturn V rocket, 363 feet tall,  was a Heavy Lift vehicle...very powerful, and used in the Apollo program in the 1960's and 1970's,  and used to launch the Skylab space station.

Third Stage 

The Apollo Command Module, LES (Launch Escape System), and Tower Jettison Motor

First, Second, and Third Stages

F-1 Engines

The Starship Gallery is a large part of the Space Center.  

Lunar Rover

Command Module

Space Shuttle

Touching the Moon Rock

Not having been to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, we cannot compare the two.  But, we enjoyed the visit to Johnson Space Center.  We went on a Tuesday when school was in session, so, other than the field trip buses, which didn't interfere with our visit at all, we encountered few children, and only a small percentage of adults.  We had no wait for shows.  We highly recommend a visit if you are in the area.  If you plan to go more than once, the year-long pass is only sightly more than the day pass.