She's Crafty

Free Museum Day

Ok, I didn't even know such a thing existed (Free Museum Day) but Jennifer from Big D & Me sent me the sweetest email telling me about it and I was like, "UM YEAH, we are totally going to take advantage of that!" Thanks Jennifer by the way, I love you.  :)

After looking over the list of the participating museums we decided to go somewhere we had never been before,  the John Hutchings Museum of Natural History. I have just got to say what a hidden gem this small museum is in Lehi. We walked through the entire museum twice and loved every minute of it! There are 13 exhibit rooms all with different themes.

The first room was the Bird & Egg Room. Since we have been reading books and learning about birds the last 2 weeks at our house, this was an amazing room for us to be in. Look at this display of bird eggs, all found in Utah.

They had a whole wall of different nests so the kids could see in person how different birds build their nests.



They had walls displaying stuffed birds, most found in Utah (maybe all of them, I don't know). We spent a good amount of time in this room, and even came back a second time like I said before.


The Butterfly and Insect Hall was pretty jaw-dropping. Look at these beautiful displays.




They had magnifying glasses the kids could use to get a closer look at all the bugs and butterflies.


Take a look at this Rubber Grasshopper. It's HUGE! Please don't come around my home buddy. I will have a heart attack!


Miss Lila has learned to point and she stole the show by pointing and babbling about everything in the displays. Oh how I love her!


Their Rock & Mineral Room was the largest. It's pretty amazing seeing what minerals and rocks come out of our Earth.





The Fossil and Dinosaur Room stole Luke's heart instantly. 












Andy came up to this thing below and said, "Look Mom, an old toilet!" It was an old meat scale...And I laughed my head off that Andy thought it was a toilet.


They had lots of animal skins that the kids could feel. It was really interesting to feel the different furs. They even had a seal skin. As you can see, Luke wasn't so keen on touching the fox. haha!


Another one of our favorite rooms was the Native American Room. They had a drum set up for the kids to drum away on and it was a huge hit with the kids.


Especially Miss Lila...She was tickled pink banging that drum! It was pretty darn cute, not gonna lie! :)  There were lots of tears when I finally moved her away from the drum.





I loved all the artifacts in the Native American Room. It has got me excited to teach the kids more about that part of history.



Apparently this building housed the Lehi Old West Jail....


I went inside to take a peek and the kids shut me in there. hahaha Actually, they were terrified to go inside and take a look so I had to show them it wasn't all that bad.


But funny story...They had this made up bed and person laying on it in one of the jail cells. Throughout the museum they kept having real animals that had been stuffed on display so Luke took one look inside and looked at me in horror and said, "Is that a stuffed person?" Oh my goodness, I almost rolled on the floor it was so funny. Poor kid was terrified! I obviously assured him it was fake since he got inside the jail cell for me.


One of the weirdest enjoyments of the museum was in the Lehi Sugar Factory Room. They had an exhibit called "Take a Sniff and guess the Whiff". There were 21 different spices on display that you could smell and try to guess what they were.


I couldn't believe how much my boys enjoyed this! Seriously, after smelling Turmeric I was like, "Ok, I'm done!" but Andy got a big kick out of making Luke smell some of the nasty ones and then having him frown in disgust. LOL! Brothers....