Thursday, March 29, 2007

It's a Land of Make-Believe...

My dear hubby and I recently took the kids for a road trip - we just really needed to get out of the house. We drove to Lancaster to spend a few hours at the Hands On House. The kids LOVE pretending and this is the perfect place for them to really act things out! Chicken Nugget would pretend (with me of course) 24-7 if I would oblige... but I just can't. I've been pretending now for six and a half years, and honestly, I'm getting a bit weary.

The Hands On House is awesome. The first time we went, the kids liked it so much that I bought a year membership for the family. With three kids of different ages - it can satisfy the needs of each of the kids. I think that Huckleberry is on the tailend of the age range - but he still enjoyed it very much. Their yearly membership includes reciprocity with a long list of museums throughout the United States - including the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia which is really awesome!

They have a face painting area where the kids do it themselves, a farming area where they ride on a tractor and learn about different farming equipment and the agriculture of the area, a factory called the Whatcha Ma Giggle Factory where the kids get to punch in a time clock and work on an assembly line, a dress up room with a stage and a pirate ship to send fun flags up the mast. And the girls personal favorite - the supermarket. The girls always spend alot of time in this area either shopping and "buying" the food, or being the check out girl. It's alot of fun. You can even grab a preprinted shopping list when you walk in - making it fun and educational.

This is a great place! During the week it is normally a quiet place - never over crowded and small enough to let your kids run around from station to station. On the weekends, well it's always more crowded on the weekends, but still not unbearable. Here are some pictures from our trip.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi again! Yes, we love this place - surprised the kids with a mystery trip to Lancaster last winter and fun was had by all - even our pre-teen who pretended mightily NOT to have fun. The pretense came to a crashing halt when Todd popped out of the dress up area wearing a Lucille Ball look-alike costume - even ultra-cool "Adolescent Boy" collapsed with laughter! Fun fun fun!