The Faux-First Day and Discovery Gateway

Yea! A new post! Sorry, I just haven't been able to come up with anything to write about in the past (almost) 2 weeks, but now I have something:

Yesterday was the first day of school in our school district- for most kids. Kindergartners don't start school until a week later (next Tuesday for us)- something that I didn't even know until about 3 weeks before school started (when I got around to reading the fine print on one of the handouts I was given when I registered Jefferson) . Not being from Utah and being a first-time school parent, I was not aware of the way things are done in Utah. The school districts in Utah (or most of them) use the first week of school as a time to do Kindergarten assessments. Rather than start school, each Kindergartner meets with their teacher once sometime during the first week so that the teacher can find out more about each child and what they've learned already. Kindergarten assessments=Normal, Using the first week of school to do that=Strange to me. Where I grew up, assessments are done during the summer before the school year starts. Who knows, maybe my home region is weird for wanting to do that stuff early. Jefferson had his assessment today and did well.

Jefferson with his new teacher:



I bring that up because yesterday Nate also took the day off work. He submitted the vacation request long before I found out Jefferson's first day of would not, in fact, be the 21st of August, but would actually be the 28th of August. He could have changed his request, but unfortunately, Nate will be out of town next week, missing Jefferson's actual first day of school. So instead of Nate just working on the faux-first day, I figured that we could do something fun as a family for the day. We decided to go to Discovery Gateway. It's a children's museum at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. I took Jefferson and Jackson to the Children's Museum when Jackson was still a small baby and it was located in Northern Salt Lake City, but I hadn't had an opportunity to visit the museum at it's new location (which it has been in for almost a year). There were a lot of similarities between the old and new museums, but the new museum is definitely nicer -except the price: $8.50 for Utah residents 1 & up, $9.50 for non-residents 1 & up, plus parking- the old location was $4/person 1 & up, free parking.

When you first walk in, you enter the "Beehive" which has a bunch of activities centered around tube and balls. The kids spent at least an hour in this area. Even Mason was able to participate. Jackson apparently associated the balls going down the tubes with sliding down a slide since he kept saying "wee" every time he dropped a ball down a tube. Here are some videos and pictures of them putting balls into the tubes:


(Jackson still isn't saying much but he does like repeating some phrases after me, like in the second video he says "good job" after I say it to Mason. Did you recognize it?)



The next area of the museum is like a kid-sized town. There is the Construction Zone, the Market, the House, the Farm, and lots more. You can pretend to be a construction worker, home decorator, cook, cashier, mailman, farmer, gardener, etc.. It's a place full of imagination and fun. There's even a Climbing Wall and a Water Play exhibit. We let Jefferson loose in this area to play wherever he wanted, while letting Jackson and Mason take sanctuary in the "Hatch, Waddle and Fly" area, an area for children 3 and under.

Jefferson playing around:



In the Sanctuary:




The upstairs level of the museum has some cool stuff, but most of it is geared towards older children so the kids didn't have quite a much fun up there, but still found things to do.

Jefferson was able to pretend to be an Anchorman and Weatherman:
(Jackson did too, but he didn't stay long enough to get pictures)



And they got to sit in a Life Flight Helicopter provided to the museum by Intermountain Healthcare, which Jefferson really enjoyed:



We all had a fun day at the museum (even Mason- which is I guess why they charge even for 1 year olds). We would have stayed longer at the museum if it wasn't for the grumbling in our stomachs telling us that we were really late for lunch. Unfortunately, we went over the 3 hour mark by six minutes and had to pay the next fee level for parking. If it hadn't been for our empty stomachs, I would have turned around and gone back into the museum to make the most of the extra hour of parking we had to pay for. I think next year it may be worth buying a membership to the museum so we can go as much as we want and not break the bank. The cost of a membership is a little cheaper than three single day price visits. It really is a fun place for everyone- even the parents!

We didn't spend any extra time at The Gateway, which I was disappointed about, so I'll have to go back sometime to see the other fun things there. They have a fountain that I hear is fun for kids to run around in and the Clark Planetarium also relocated to The Gateway. Another day.