South Carolina State Museum

We decided to go check out the South Carolina State Museum on one of the exceptionally hot Saturdays here and we were pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had there.  They had lots of hands on activities for kids and lots of interesting things to look at.  Drew and I ended up enjoying ourselves a lot too and had fun looking at everything with the kids.  We even went to a little planetarium show for the kids there which was a lot of fun.  It was Alden's and Anders' first planetarium show and they seemed to enjoy it.  I loved to go to those shows when I was a kid and so it was fun to get to take my kids to one.

They had some interesting artwork in part of the museum but that was probably the thing at the museum that Alden was least interested in.

Alden and Drew had fun looking at the water paths and past water levels on this map.

Alden had fun seeing the giant woolly mammoth and armadillo models.

Alden wanted to show me all of the bugs that he found.

They had a nice area showing the different environments in South Carolina.

There was a neat dinosaur dig that the kids could dig in  There were brushes so that the kids could push the beans off the bones gently.  Alden thought that it was really cool. 

Anders wanted to play too, even though it was a little hard for him to reach.

Drew and I had fun showing Alden lots of things, like HAM radios, that either Drew or I have used in our lifetime.

Alden had fun trying to talk to Dad on the old phones there.

Alden had fun looking at the old televisions and a morse code system.

They had some neat models of ships there that were fun to see.

Alden and Drew had fun trying to figure out how to connect all the components of an engine correctly.  They had to look at the answer to finally get it right.

They had a set up with model trains that Alden thought was really cool.  He loved pushing the buttons to make the trains go around the tracks.

I look at this example of old factories and I think about how horrible it would have been to work in them.

Alden loved looking at the train they had there.

They had a bunch of illusions that you could look at and we had a lot of fun spending time there.

Alden really wanted to lift the weight like Daddy and he did it.

Alden loved using these flip toys down the tracks.

The boys loved putting marbles on this cyclone to watch them spin around in circles.

Anders was fascinated watching the marbles.

Alden loved all of the hands on activities at the museum.

The boys were excited to see their first planetarium show!

Alden wanted to take a picture of us.  He was so excited to watch the show.

After the show we went and explored the top floor of the museum.  There were lots of interesting things like this hearse and lots of rifles to look at.

They had tons of telescopes on display.

They even had one large telescope set up that you could go look through.  Alden was excited to go try and look through it even though it was overcast so he couldn't see much.

Drew and I thought it was hilarious that we found our childhood classroom in a museum!  We aren't that old, are we?

They also had a workbench display with lots of tools and we thought it was interesting that lots of the tools on display there are things that we have or our parent's have.

The last area we walked through was designed to show off some of the state parks in South Carolina.  Alden had fun walking around, climbing on the boat and looking at the beautiful murals on the wall showing some of the South Carolina landscapes.

We had a great time at the museum and I am glad that we took the time to go and learn a little more about where we are currently living.  I was very glad that they had so many hand-on activities for the kids because it made the museum fun for all of us.