McKinley Museum in Canton, Ohio - March 28, 2012

We went to the William McKinley Presidential Library & Museum in Canton, Ohio at the end of March - it was the first time going there for all of us.  We went with a couple of good friends of mine and their kiddos (they aren't homeschoolers, but I *am* trying to recruit them to the dark side - bwahahaha!)  It's not a terribly big museum, but I was quite pleasantly surprised with how much great stuff it contained.  The first floor had a lot of hands-on, science / nature stuff, and the second floor had lots of historical stuff.  There is also a planetarium, but we skipped it out of consideration of other people who wanted to enjoy the planetarium.  I am dying to take Monkey in one, but I know Bug wouldn't have the patience to sit through the whole presentation.  Overall, the kids had a blast, except they were once again running in opposite directions pretty much the whole time.

The view driving in.  That building is the Presidential Library.  We explored around it but didn't go in there.  The main museum part (not pictured) is in a larger building to the left.

Monkey is controlling a robotic arm to pick up sponges.

This chair was connected to a regular vacuum cleaner.  When turned on, it demonstrated that the suction created by the vacuum was strong enough to lift the chair with a person sitting in it.

This spinny ride-thing demonstrated how bearings reduce friction and make things easier to spin freely.  It would be easy to turn at first, with the bearings engaged, but then they would disengage and you could feel the difference in how hard it was to turn the wheel.

The second floor had a replica of a historical town you could walk through - brick streets underfoot and all - and you could peek inside the various shops & businesses.

General Store

Print Shop

Saloon

Fire Station

You could go into the fire station and climb up to the second level, where you could descend via the pole!  Monkey loved it!

Finally, there was a HUGE model train display!  It was excellent!

Afterward, we went outside for a picnic lunch, followed by my boys tackling those stairs.  Several times.  If you have small children, I highly recommend this activity for energy-burning purposes.  My legs were KILLING me the next day!

Marchin' to the top.

Bug, sliding down along the sides of the stairs.  Wheeee!  Monkey did this over and over, but I didn't get any good shots of him sliding.

Monkey went up the front stairs, down the side stairs, back up, then down the front stairs, then up then down then up then down again, and finished off his workout by rolling down the grassy hill.  Whew!