What's Inside The Mind Museum's #DinoPlay

Like the others, the fascination with the largest creatures that once roamed the Earth started when I was about like 7 years old and my dad brought home this awesome children's encyclopedia collection. You know, those you can buy from persistent salesmen in suits in malls. But I loved the books nonetheless.
I can still see the scene clearly in my mind's eye, him giving me the book showing a weird monster with a row of whatsoever protruding from its back. I also remember him letting us watch an animated dinosaur film he used to rent out from a video store.

I used to have an odd obsession after watching Jurassic park in cinema that might simply just be the result of seeing it a billion times. Simply one of the movies I could not get over.
As a kid, just as now, intrigued about the idea of what the world was like billions of years before us came along. The desire to know of their past lives has never left me.

If we share a common fascination with dinosaurs and still be wondering about the life of a dinosaur, I encourage you to bring your whole family to Dino Play in BGC as this travelling exhibit will only be at the Mind Museum until end of September.
Your youngsters will definitely be awed by their size, be curious about their life, and be boggled by their tongue-twisting names.
But this is just not for the kids but also for the kids at heart and Paleontologist wanna bes!

It's awesome that The Mind Museum would bring something like Dino Play, an immersive and fascinating interactive exhibit designed for children 2 years old and above. They feature massive and also small scale models, and real dinosaur fossil bones.

Inside Dino Play, your kids can roam around and do activities like unearthing bones at Dino Dig, examining fossils at Dino Lab, climbing a lookout tower with binoculars in search of hidden dinos in Dino Fun, dressing up like a dinosaur and making footprints in Dino Den.

This is the actual jeep from the movie Jurassic Park. I kid.
This is actually a vintage Sarao jeep.

If you're planning to go but with no museum tour, you can only pay P100 for the adult, 200 for the child. But if you wish to include a Museum Tour, rate would be P700 for adult, 650 for the child. This is good for a 3-hour tour.

Went to Dino Play as part of a media tour on a Sunday with Tone, and my own mini dinosaurs. I was expecting a less-crowded museum as the weather was not good but it was surprisingly jampacked. Given its size, it can really get crowded, but just pace yourself.

You cannot miss this place as it is situated just outside the Mind Museum itself. Smaller than I expected however there was a plethora of fun information contained in cleverly constructed displays around so even passersby can learn something.

One information we learned here that was truly fascinating was about dinosaur fossils being found in the Philippines. So far, they say that paleontologists have yet to find any.
This maybe because when the dinosaurs lived, the Philippine islands hadn't formed yet.
However, fossils of other life forms were also found in areas around the Philippines. These include ammonities, and Stegodon, an extinct relative of the elephant.
Awesome, right?

I love how the museum put small dinosaur models, fossils and interactive resources that were truly educational to the little ones.
Spotted also was a child friendly time line was displayed to show the historic period of dinosaurs and Dino fossil distribution.

My thought bubble requested for computers allocated in different parts of the place for the kids to access further information about dinosaurs since kids nowadays appreciate complex computer devices. But they do provide guide books.

..And our prehistoric journey began

Dino Dig was our first stop

If you're on your way to becoming a paleontologist one day,  you have to have all the skills and patience. Patience in locating the right excavation sites.
The best part for me was the digging and unearthing dinosaurs. There were available mini shovel and paint brushes in pails on shelves.
Removing the soft sand stone layers using those paint brushes relaxes me big time. Evolved into a Ross Geller girl version after the first sign of bone appeared. Just don't forget to clean up and put back the things after using them.

The man of the house trying to shift careers 

You can almost see its eye socket

Well, hello there, twinny!

Fascinating side stories on each boxes were told like the 2 Dinosaurs died fighting. These stories were real but of course the bones were already models produced by using the die casting method.
Bones of baby T-REX  inside smaller boxes were also seen.

Our next stop ? 

The Dino Den!

Inside Dino Den, your children can wear costumes and dress up like dinosaurs to feel how it is to be a dinosaur, plus you can use the really cool slippers to make your own dinosaur footprints!

But kids at heart can play too!

The cool dinosaur slippers!

Next to the Dino Den is the Dino Fun where the kids can play and learn at the same time. 

 Just contemplating whether I'm a direct descendant of  those meat-eating dinosaurs. Most probably. In my opinion.

Inside Dino Fun, you can take refuge at the Dino lookout tower where you can spot imaginary fast approaching meat-eating monsters and learn about them at the same time.

I'm trying to imagine how this tower would look at my garden. I think I'm gonna buy something like this soon!

Am I too big to step on the tower?

My girls are busy building and identifying a dinosaur!

There is truly so much to see and very hands on for the children even if they only provide small space. Like this activity with magnets. Teaching the kids how to identify each dinosaur the most fun way possible. Dino Play is really suitable for all ages as there are so many activities.
You can play with your kids like you are part in an excavation trail but let them do the work and give them the much treasured medal at the end.

They also provide a sandbox for kids where you can mold different shapes of dinosaurs. At first I thought they used kinetic sand. It was actually smooth to touch and won't stick to your hands.

Our final stop..

Yes, the Dino Lab!

They've provided an adult guide book so parents would know the answers their kids would ask them.
They have drawers and pull-out exhibits sort of hidden in various displays. You can also try fun activities with your kids, like they can guess which dinosaur inside each bottle. Some of the fossils are real. They even preserved Dino poops!

I think she said that this was the real wood. With a dino fossil. Yes. 

What have we got there? 

These, my friend, are dino poops. Yes!

All the stuff you see inside Dino Play are important and contribution to science so you need to handle everything with care.

Here's more fun facts!

In my mind, I'm hoping that someday they would include dinosaur learning as a topic to be studied by children in Primary schools.
Taking time to visit museums like this would definitely enhance and develop the children's understanding of the great and powerful creature that once roamed the Earth and put some things in better perspective for the younger children.

If you have all the energy and (money), you can probably stay there for a whole day activity.
We were there only for 2 hours because it was almost dinner time and we had to visit Mind Museum once again. My kids wished for a longer dino play time.

Jollibee is just outside the museum if the kids get hungry and need refreshments. You can also check great deals online where you can score cheaper tickets.

Thank you so much, The Mind Museum , Dino Play for a day of fun and learning!

Again, the Mind Museum's traveling exhibition, Dino Play, will be on display in the Museum for a limited run- until September 30, 2016 only.

Here are the ticket prices once again.

Dino Play (no museum tour)- Adult- Php 100; Child/Student- Php 200
Dino Play with The Mind Museum (3-hour tour)- Adult Php 700; Child/Student- Php 650
All-Day Pass (no 3-hour limit) Plus Dino Play- Php 850

You can fully enjoy this exhibit for 90 minutes choosing from these timeslots:
| 9:00-10:30 | 10:30-12:00 | 12:00-1:30 | 1:30-3:00 | 3:00-4:30 | 4:30-6:00 |

Dino Play is just outside The Mind Museum and is located at J.Y. Campos Park, 3rd Ave., Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines.

For more information, call 909-MIND (6463) or visit www.themindmuseum.org