I had the opportunity to attend a field trip to the Arizona Museum of Natural History (AKA the Dinosaur Museum) recently. I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had there. There are a ton of dinosaur skeletons and models. This place is any little boy’s dream. Here is a shot of the dinosaur room from the stairs looking down. There are lots of other dinosaurs in the museum, but this room is definitely the most impressive.
You can really learn a lot about the history of Arizona, from the dinosaurs to the Native Americans that lived here. There is a Lost Dutchman mine section you can walk through and even territorial jail cells. My daughter’s favorite activity was panning for gold. She is only four and needed quite a bit of assistance from me, but it was her favorite.
My favorite part is the three story waterfall and dinosaur scene. There are observation points on each level so you can take in the whole scene from top to bottom. Every hour or so there is a “flash flood” and a lot of water is released down the water fall. We were lucky enough to walk up just as one of these floods started. It was pretty neat to see.
The museum is really great at engaging children. There were puzzles in almost every room. I saw several 3D wooden puzzles to construct. These would be great for older kids. On the bottom floor there is a children’s discovery area. It is filled with books, puzzles, coloring activities, and lots of other activities. I had a hard time pulling my daughter out of there.
We had a great time at the museum and I would love to go back. They have very reasonable rates on year passes so we just might look into doing that. The Arizona Museum of Natural History is located in downtown Mesa at 53 N. Macdonald in Mesa. You can find more details including admission prices at their website: http://azmnh.org/
