Children Museum Exploration #3: Maine Discovery Museum

Thus far, Maine's Discovery Museum tops our list as the very best children's museum out there.  At very least, the best in New England.  I admit we haven't seen every last one, but we've seen our share. 

What we liked:

- Cheap parking ($2.00 for four hours)
-  Low traffic (Bangor, ME)
-  Friendly people (we're finding that Maine is chock full of these)
-  Clean facilities
-  So much information that you can spend an entire day in each section - and the museum is three stories of awesome
-  The restrooms are integrated into the building's design - e.g. - on the second story, the restrooms are the back of a big rig truck
-  live animals (turtles, fish, lizards, spiders, and more - all native to Maine)
-  integration of Maine history, geography, and industry alongside science and discovery
-  Paleontology dig area - huge sand pit with real dino fossils for kids to find
-  dress up stations (doctors, sailors, farmers...)
-  hang gliding simulation
-  human body crawl through
-  puppet theatre
-  a huge boat with shipping supplies, life jackets, navigation equipment, and more for kids to use and explore
-  a stop action animation studio



I could go on.  We liked it a LOT.  I had fun too - and that's not always the case at these types of locations.  I texted Michael about a hundred times telling him about the next cool thing as we moved through the building.

What we didn't like:

-  having to leave
- a couple of exhibits were broken, and didn't look like they would be repaired any time soon

The photos (of course)!:

This is Maeryn's "beaver face".  You could explore a beaver dam, go fishing with magnetic fish, and crawl up a tree and into the nest of a bird in this area of the museum.

Paper making - logging is one of Maine's largest industries.

Restaurant exploration - Jonah spent a long time at this area organizing and setting up restaurant service for himself and his sister.

Wish I would have taken more!