Orlando is full of great attractions! Many fun to visit, but when you live here and homeschool you can quickly see they are purely for entertainment value. That’s why we always buy an annual membership to the Orlando Science Center!

The OSC is four floors of hands-on learning fun! OSC offers “traveling” exhibits like: The Human Body, Engineering, Bob the Builder and (our favorite so far) Star Wars!!

The handful of exhibits that do not change still offer something new every trip.

The Science Park Exhibit is ridiculous fun for tactile kids. Kids learn about: electricity, sound waves, magnetism, and gravity all while playing! This room is loud, fun, and oversized. We can easily spend an hour shouting echos through large pipes, pounding out musical notes, racing derby cars, and playing on the giant sized chess board.

We head downstairs to enjoy some live science at the NatureWorks exhibit.

At the base of the cypress tree about 2pm you can feed gators or pet a snake! Check out all the aquariums to see: fish, turtles, lizards, a hedgehog, frogs, snakes, scorpions, spiders, and other small animals. Don’t miss the table with all the fossils – really neat stuff! Learn about sinkholes, and watch the huge beehive – full of live bees!

Once you’re downstairs be sure to take little ones into Kids Town. This town is super cool for little people.

Our little boy loves the orange grove and picking “oranges” off the trees! You can dump the fruit into a machine and watch it move across the room to eventually reappear back on the tree. Little man loves the adventure of “Under the Street” and racing around under the people and building! If you’re bringing your little ones stop by the base of the big oak tree for story time, or climb to the top for a rest in the little tree house.

My older tactile son likes to play at the water table and build channels for boat races, or he spends time behind the oak tree in the Gears section.

You can head all the way back up to the top of OSC and enjoy the hands-on planets and weather exhibits! Don’t forget the IMAX theater shows. Get your hands real dirty with the fun Dino-Dig!

http://youtu.be/bi0AEeMdULE

OSC is easy to navigate, full of helpful volunteers, a bathroom on every floor, and Subway available on the bottom level! Spending some time in Orlando or considering a yearly membership – OSC surely guarantees amazing educational fun!

What is your family’s favorite museum?