A Trip to the Thinkery

Here in Austin we've got a place called the 'Thinkery'.  It's a children's museum, but it's different.  The only way I can think to describe it is that they seem to have taken the montessori idea to the extreme in a children's science museum.  I don't recall seeing any signs or plaques with information about displays on them.  In fact, the displays we saw were more like playgrounds than the typical museum display.

On Wednesday, we decided to meet up for cookie time (at my work cafeteria, they start serving freshly baked cookies at 3:00 most days), then spend the afternoon hanging out as a family.  We decided to go to the Thinkery.  We also ate out at Verts, by the way, which was a tad expensive, but very tasty food.  I approve.

Ella found the Thinkery to be really fun.  They've got a couple of areas that are appropriate for kids her age, and we started with the 'sprouts' area (it's themed about growing food or something, I think).  Here she discovered the wall of mirrors and the tunnel of mirrors.  I'm not sure why mirrors and growing stuff go together, but she thought these were awesome.  I couldn't resist getting this picture.  See if you can decide which Ella is the non-reflection Ella.  I have it narrowed down to 2, but I can't decide between them.

They also had a ridiculously large water toy.  It had waterfalls, buckets that would tip over when they were filled, and generally anything else which would help illustrate water current.  ('Currents' happened to be the name of the area, I think).  Ella was a little young for this room, but we found some spots (here, and here) where she just had a blast.  If you're curious about why her hands are moving so furiously, so are we, but this video may help (it starts a little slow, but the end is worth it).