Family day at the Liberty Science Center

I am fortunate enough to be a member of the New Jersey Moms Blog, part of the well known Silicon Valley Moms Group. Women who write for the New Jersey Moms Blog, the New York City Moms Blog and the Philadelphia Moms Blog recently received an invitation to a private party at the Liberty Science Center. I’d never been there so I thought it would be fun for our family to go.

We set out on our way yesterday morning. I got out of the neighborhood and had remembered my sunglasses, money for tolls, the directions and CJ’s vsmile game. Most impressive, I usually forget at least one thing when I’m driving more then a few miles. After getting on the Parkway I realized I’d forgotten a spare Pull-up. See what I mean! Fortunately hubby had one in his console. One hour later, after meeting up with a couple of rude toll collectors and one nice one, we arrived at our destination in Jersey City, NJ.

The Liberty Science Center is huge. We were greeted at the door and directed to the Jennifer Chalsty Center for our party. I was glad we were in a part of the building that had bathrooms right there, very convenient for those of us working on pottying. CJ can go all day most of the time without an accident so we do everything we can to be sure he can made it to a potty when he needs one. We snagged a drink and a cookie and set out to explore.

I wanted to take CJ to see One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure. This took place in a little miniature inflatable planetarium. During this show Big Bird and Elmo meet up with Hu Hu Zu (sp?) and learn about the stars, sun, moon, the Big Dipper and the North Star. This was a big hit with CJ because he loves the Sesame Street characters. He absolutely loved Elmo, and asked if we could do it again.

Some things were set up right in our area, like the lab where we did some coloring to reinforce what we’d just learned about the solar system. There was also a live hands on animal display, which we unfortunately missed. I was too late to watch it from the beginning but I did get a peek at part of the liquid nitrogen show through the door.

From there we met back up with RB and TJ and headed upstairs to explore. We saw an exhibit about germs called The Infection Connection. One of the displays there sneezed on us. Eww! It wasn’t real sneezy stuff of course, but the whole idea of it was to teach you how forceful a sneeze can be and how germs spread.

We found an exhibit called Eat Or Be Eaten. Here we saw all sorts of live animals including turles, reptiles, frogs, bugs and fish. My pictures didnt come out well unfortunately. Some of the animals were neat. The stick bugs were cool, they look just like a stick you’d find in your yard. We saw a flat frog, that was very cool. We saw a fish that makes himself look just like the rocks. I circled him in purple so you’d know where he was.

We saw several different turtles. CJ really liked these and kept telling me “Mom, turtle!”

We had a great time.  There’s only two things I would have changed about the day. The first is that I wish I’d had the opportunity to meet more of the other Mom bloggers.  The second is time. Had I known the Liberty Science Center was so big I definitely would have started our day earlier. I’d like to go back another day when I have more time to explore because there sure is a lot there to see. There’s some sort of outdoor display that my husband wants to check out. I really want to take CJ into the I Explore exhibit.

Thanks again to the Liberty Science Center and to the Silicon Valley Moms Group for this fun opportunity!

Category: Entertainment, Family