The Heard Museum

Today we took advantage of a new program that the public library system is offering called "Culture Passes." You pick them up at the library and they allow you to visit a certain cultural place for free. I was lucky enough that I snagged one for the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix. It is a Native American History Museum. It was really neat.

Here is Kayley looking at this HUGE display of Katsina dolls (not to be confused with Kachina dolls).

Honestly, the website played it up as a good place to visit with the whole family, but I'm going to give an honest review of this museum and tell you that it was NOT. There was a few things for Kayley to do, but for the most part, James and I should've gotten a babysitter and made a date out of it.

There were quite few interactive exhibits, but the countertops were all WAY too high. If they were intended for children, they were intended for very tall children. Like 12+.
In Kayley's excitement to see try to see an exhibit she fell out of her stroller and was wailing in the exhibit hall. I know, you are wondering how a child can actually fall out of a stroller aren't you? Well...let's just say Kayley can figure it out. Oh, and she is fine by the way. Not even a bump just an annoyed (loud) toddler.

They had these awesome puzzles everywhere that she couldn't reach. Oh, and it was SO hot in there that I was sweaty by the time we were ready to leave this gallery. I was getting pretty annoyed because my kid fell out her stroller, in a 90 degree gallery, that was supposedly "interactive for kids" with countertops that she couldn't even reach....

Oh, and they had these great stations where you could make a project to take home. We tried to make some kind of basket thing and between the 3 of us, nobody could figure out the directions on how to make it. We ended up throwing it away in frustration. Half the other things to make were empty like nobody had replenished them since yesterday. We got there as the museum opened so they should've had plenty for us to play with.

We also got frustrated trying to figure out how to read the gallery map. We couldn't find an elevator mainly because we couldn't figure out where we were! And there were no docents wandering around to help us out? I guess everybody that worked there just hung around the front desk?

One thing they did have that was pretty cool was a bell choir. We never figured out what school they were from, but they were great.

They asked for audience participation, so Kayley and I volunteered to help with the rain stick.

It was pretty cool. It was a train song and the bell choir performed to the rain.
Kayley got tired of the rainstick halfway through the performance though and ditched me up there...the video is at the bottom.

This interactive gallery was empty of kids and people. There is probably supposed to be lots of cool stuff to do in here but there were no docents and the project tables were all empty so we could only do 2 of the 6 projects in here...

I don't know what this is. An iceburg I think.

Kayley checking out the Katsina dolls.

The bell choir.
They were really good. I thought it seemed odd that a bell choir was performing during he summer...I thought they were a Christmas thing, but they were awesome.
Those girls were wearing long black velvet gowns...they had to be so hot!

The rainstick and the bell choir. I can't believe Kayley ditched me up there...You can see her tell me, "I'm done with this now..." and I tell her "Ok you can go stand by Daddy". So she ran off and left me there... She actually came back and finished the song with me a few seconds later...I guess it looked like I was having a lot of fun with that rainstick...which I totally wasn't. =)