Virginia Living Museum part 2

More pictures from our outing at the museum. In the entry they have this large turtle shell for the kids to play on. They all took turns being the turtle and riding the turtle. Joey, Joy, and Jessi, riding Dean the turtle. I think Dean wishes we had something like this at home. He frequently has all the kids on him, but without benefit of this nice turtle shell as a buffer.
Jessi doing an interactive virtual frog disection. It was pretty neat. It was on a touchscreen computer, so you had to touch the tools in your kit, then touch the frog to cut it up.

In honor of the big Jamestown 400 celebrations that are going on all over our area, the museum has a really neat exhibit called "Survivor Jamestown." You pick up a "life board" at the entrance and it tells you who you are (based on actual Jamestown settlers) and how much of various necessities and commodities you start with (food, shelter, clothes, items for trade). As you go through the maze, you make decisions and face situations that either add or subtract life beads. The challenge is to make it the whole way through without running out. Jeff died when his corn got eaten by deer, but Dean made it with only one bead left. The kids just ran through and played at all the stations.

Dean and Joey playing with skunk skins at one of the learning stations. These were real skunk skins that were partially sewn back up to make puppets. Yuck.

Joy gave out somewhere along the nature trail.
In one of the aquarium rooms Jessi was excited to see these puffer fish. She wanted to see them puff up though. I told her that they only puff up when they are scared or excited... so she kept turning her head away, then quickly turning back and saying "Boo!" The fish never did cooperate and realize that this was supposed to be frightening, but it sure was cute.