Travel
/ November 2018

5 Must See Exhibits at The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY

*This post is sponsored by The Strong National Museum of Play and SheKnows Media.

We have some exciting news! Last week, in honor of becoming a family of FIVE, we officially became minivan owners. We have been working hard to save for this exciting purchase, so that we could get a van with everything our family needs: enough seats, all-wheel drive for the snowy Pennsylvania winters, lots of storage, etc. The most fun feature is a DVD player that pops down from the ceiling and even comes with Bluetooth headphones for the kiddies, so we can listen to music on long drives while they watch a show. With this exciting purchase, we have been dying to take a road trip in order to give our new van a test drive.

Last weekend we packed up the van and headed straight to Rochester, NY to visit The Strong National Museum of Play. It is only a few hours away from us and so many of my friends had told me it was amazing, which made it the perfect destination for a test road trip. Using my tricks for surviving a road trip with kids made a few hours of driving easy!

There are lots of things to do in Rochester, New York, but if you are visiting with kids than nothing quite beats a visit to The Strong National Museum of Play. We arrived at noon and stayed as long as we could, but even that didn’t feel long enough. There was just SO much fun to be had and play to be done – I’m thinking about buying season passes, even though we live a couple hours away. It is definitely worth the drive. The kids LOVED it, and so did Kris and I.

At The Strong there are 20+ exciting, educational and interactive exhibits for the kids to experience. Each exhibit is packed with endless activities and hours of entertainment and learning for the kids.

5 Must See Exhibits at The Strong National Museum of Play:

The Strong is huge, so there is no way to fully experience everything in just one trip, but here are some highlights of we wouldn’t have wanted to miss!

1. Reading Adventureland

2. Imagination Destination

The Imagination Destination was one of Zander’s favorite places to play, although that was hard to determine, since he was literally JUMPING for joy in each new exhibit we discovered. At the Imagination Destination you can be an astronaut, rescue pilot, construction worker, actor, and more.

Zoey and Zander loved climbing into the giant aircraft and pretending they were pilots. There were three different levels of fun on the aircraft including tunnels, a slide, captain chairs, a control room and more.

One of their favorite areas was the two-story tree house that allows kids to feel like real builders! There are mini wheelbarrows that the kids can fill up with foam bricks and shingles, to help build the walls and roof. There is also a vacuum tube that you can place the bricks inside and watch as they are suctioned straight up to the second story. This was Zander’s favorite activity. I am pretty sure he could have inserted bricks in the tube and watched them fly up to the second story all day long.

3. Toy Halls of Fame

We absolutely loved exploring the Toy Halls of Fame. There you will find a larger than life robotic Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story that you can actually control. Zoey loved making the giant Mr. Potato Head toy talk and move.

There is so much more to experience here, including an oversized Etch A Sketch that will sketch your portrait, a giant checkers game, a 20-foot-tall kinetic toy sculpture made up of building blocks, a toy car race track, a huge Crayola piano that allows you to create a dazzling show of light and music, and so much more.

4. The Berenstein Bears: Down a Sunny Dirt Road

Spend time in Bear Country with the Berenstain Bears! This exhibit was so nostalgic for me, since I read these books as a kid.

At the entrance to this enchanting exhibit you will find life-sized sculptures of Mama, Papa, Brother, and Sister Bear (both Zander and Zoey insisted on getting hundreds of pictures with them). Next, you will walk onto Bear Country Main Street where an array of exciting activities will be awaiting you. There are several stores and businesses there, inspired by the books. Some of the activities you can experience include:

Designing a quilt or working at the counter at Mama Bear’s Quilt Shop.
Building creations with pretend tools and construction toys at Papa Bear’s Woodworking Shop.
Serving some lunch to your friends and family at the Bear Family Restaurant.
Trying on a lab coat and checking out a giant set of teeth at Dr. Bearson’s Dentist Office.
Visiting a barn, barnyard, and fruit and vegetable stand filled with learning activities at Farmer Ben’s Farm.

That isn’t even all of it! There was so much to do here. It was one of our last stops before leaving The Strong, and it was hard to say goodbye!

5. Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden

This is the only exhibit that isn’t included in the price of admission, but for only a few dollars extra it is definitely worth seeing. In Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden, you will get to meet a variety of different creatures close up, including turtles, butterflies, a parrot, a tortoise and baby birds!

When you’re there, make sure you watch your step, because butterflies land on the path in front of you and tiny baby birds scurry around your feet. If your kids love animals as much as mine do, this is a more personal way to meet them than you would ever experience at a zoo or in the wild. Zander and Zoey were absolutely in heaven here. Their favorite moment was watching the baby birds cuddle up to the giant tortoise as if it was their mother, and climb up on its back to walk along its shell.

It was so difficult for me to get my list down to only five favorites at The Strong. In fact, I really can’t resist mentioning the Wegman’s Super Kids Market. It was another favorite of ours and definitely worth a quick stop and shop. The kids loved filling their miniature shopping carts from the aisles, deli, fresh produce stand, and bakery at Wegman’s. At checkout, they were able to scan each item themselves and even got to print a receipt. It was so much fun! We also loved exploring Sesame Street and saying hello to some of our favorites, Big Bird, Elmo, and The Muppets!

I think it is safe to say our first road trip in our new van was a giant success. Every day since visiting The Strong, Zoey has been asking us when we will get to go back. I am already mentally planning our next trip! Hopefully, it’ll be sometime in January when we’ll have three kids to enjoy the fun together.