Successful day trip to COSI on a freezing Saturday in April.

A few weeks ago, we had a last gasp of winter complete with snow and decided to do a day trip to COSI. COSI is a hands-on kids science museum (though museum doesn’t seem like the right word) “Center of Science and Industry” in Columbus.

We knew (but the kids didn’t) that we wouldn’t be able to do day trips like this for a while with a new puppy who was coming, and I really wanted Jameson to see their Lego exhibit before it was gone in May.

The way there was a little intense, since we had to take snow-covered back roads to avoid a backed up highway. But we made it!

The Lego area was pretty cool: Jameson made a car to race down the track, and I admired the displays of Lego-work representing places around the world. Coraline liked the larger Duplo car bases and both kids wanted to take a turn in the race car.

There were even larger bricks for younger kids that they both enjoyed. But that was only the start, COSI had a lot of great activity rooms!

This display in the hall was a hit. Coraline and Jameson together shot a ball in the air with the weight of the larger ball and made the bulls-eye light up.

We next visited the Ocean rooms, and Jameson went in the little yellow submarine. They had lots of fun with water play and the shifting colors in this area made for fun photography. Jameson turned the crank to move water around. We didn’t fully describe the educational aspects of everything they were experiencing, but with a 3 and 5 year old, the experience is definitely part of the learning anyway.

In the Gadgets area, we couldn’t explore the area for older kids, but Coraline spent ages with the blue noodles putting things into holes (and misplacing the littler white rods from the nearby table into the larger holes for the noodles). Jameson watched and played with shooting the balls into the mousetrap style activity board up on the wall.

My favorite is always the Progress rooms, and I really got a kick out of showing them the old camera and old telephone system (and even the newer telephone booth).

We played with the newsroom for a little while. This photo mid-laugh is because Coraline has declared that the breaking news is about “poop” (as are all things, these days).

Jameson spent almost a full 15 minutes in the little kids activity area trying to get water to shoot out this pvc pipe that really belonged in a different waterworks area. He did, finally, get it to work when he closed off some of the openings. I was proud that he kept at it!

We really exhausted Coraline. We had lunch in their cafeteria before the kids play area but she kept pretending to sleep afterwards so we knew it was almost time to wrap it up.

Jameson insisted on doing the wind box, best 2 dollars ever spent. It’s one of the few things, besides the shows, that cost anything extra. We didn’t have time for any shows while we were there (we weren’t 100% sure that Coraline would sit through them since they were an hour or more long each anyway).

The very last room we visited was the Transportation room, and Jameson was helping “direct” another kid how to do the video game here. But when it was finally Jameson’s turn, he wasn’t any better, haha!

We had a great time. The way home was much easier since the snow was cleared off the roads. I was glad that we were able to spend the day doing something fun indoors. Jameson was excited to watch the ipad on the drive, and Coraline was excited about the snacks I brought on the way.