Our Trip to the Hall of North American Mammals.

We had a great time on our trip today! A huge shout-out to our parents chaperones: Willow, Snejana, Loi, Bing-Bing, Jovanni, Sacha, Michael (who can block traffic like nobody’s business), Frank, and Valery. With so many parents along, we were able to break up into groups of three or four, which allowed much more flexibility for the children to explore the exhibits.

I’ll turn comments over to the children (photos follow their comments).

At first I thought that it might get boring, but it was super duper fun! I loved all the dioramas! (Elizabeth)

I liked how they looked so real. The painting in the back made it look like it’s going on and on. (Saam)

I liked the dioramas. I liked to read the info. I liked the fighting moose and the skins. (Andrew)

I liked the river otters because there were a lot of trees behind it. The animals look so real! (Nathan)

I liked the moose and I liked their big horns [antlers]. It surprised me because they were so big. (Jake)

I loved how they made dead animals real so people thought they lived with them. (Aiden)

What really surprised me was that the mooses were fighting, and I didn’t think they could fight each other. (Aleksander)

I was surprised that the animals matched the painting. I also liked how the beaver fur felt. (Cassius)

I really liked it because there was an information cart that showed skulls. I recommend you go there because the dioramas show a lot of details. (Zachary)

I liked the bones and the jaguars. I liked that it looks real. (Brianna)

I really liked looking at the dead animals. It looked like it was real. (Clive)

I loved the beaver fur. It was fluffy and oily! Did you know that a beaver’s fur is oily because it keeps water off? (Bailee)

It surprised me when I knew the animals were dead. It is wrong. (Harper)

It surprised me when I touched the fur of the animals. It felt very soft. (Kyle)

I liked that we had friends for our groups. (Rebecca)

Dear Mom and Dad, It was great! I was all in shape on that train, not hurt or lost. (Daniel) [Hmmm…. I know you weren’t the only ones who were worrying! First subway trips are a bit scary for parents. Audrey]

I liked all the different habitats and animals, especially the mountain lions. (Chiara)

I learned that it takes like one year to make one diorama! (Eli)

What I loved about the trip was the dioramas. They look so lifelike! Like I could just step into them and be there. I also loved that we took the subway. But I don’t really love that they are real animals, though. (Isabel)

Today at the Museum of Natural History I was amazed at how real the animals looked in the dioramas. When I was looking at the wolves, I was wondering how they managed to make the animals stay up in mid air. I looked really closely, but there wasn’t any string. (Hazel)