Fun in New York City for Kids!

American Museum of Natural History
Location: 79 Central Park West and 79th Street
Phone: 212-769-5100
Web: www.amnh.org

Open Daily - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Space Show Every half-hour, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Come visit the American Museum of Natural History for an afternoon the whole family can enjoy. From space to anthropology, children will be entertained by the exciting exhibits and might even learn a thing or two. Open year round, this is a must visit for any family visiting New York City.

Highlights include:
Hall of Dioramas - The most renowned and beloved exhibits at the Museum, geographical locations and animals create a window into their habitats. Since many of the environments have been exploited or degraded, this gives you the chance to see places that no longer exist. You not only travel through continents, you travel through time.

Fossil Halls - One of the premier attractions in New York, the Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of vertebrate fossils, totalling over one million specimens. You can see more than 600 different fossils, arranged by evolutionary relationships. A crowd favorite is the complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth - By far the coolest installation in the Musuem, at the center of the Hall hangs the Dynamic Earth Globe, measuring eight feet in diameter. A digital film renders a stunning view of Earth from outer space to visitors in the granite amphitheater below. Located right near by is the Earth Event Wall, an electronic bulletin that broadcasts current news on global events such as storms, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions using both live-action video footage and computer-generated animation.

The Discovery Room at AMNH
The Discovery Room offers families an interactive gateway to the wonders of the Museum and a hands-on, behind-the scenes look at the sciences involved. Tailored for children ages 5 to 12, from anthropology to zoology, together you explore natural history through an array of artifacts and specimens, puzzles and scientific challenges.

The Discovery Room is located on the first floor by the 77th Street elevators. Hours are Monday through Friday, 1:30-5:10 p.m. and Saturday-Sunday (and public school holidays) from 10:30 a.m.-5:10 p.m., with a 45-minute closing for lunch between 1:30-2:15 p.m.

Some of the activities include:
Hunt for animals in a majestic two-story replica of an African baobab tree filled with specimens of birds, insects, reptiles and small mammals.

Assemble a life-sized cast skeleton of Prestosuchus, a 14-foot long reptile from the late Triassic Period; handle real fossils, and unearth an Oviraptor nest in a re-creation of a paleontology field site.

Track real-time earthquakes anywhere in the world on a three-drum seismograph and explore the natural world with sophisticated microscopes on the upper level.

Snakes Alive!
Showcasing more than 60 live animals representing 27 species from all over the world and their remarkable adaptations, including projectile tongues, deadly venom, amazing camouflage and sometimes surprising modes of locomotion.

Reptiles come in many shapes and sizes, and this is your chance to see some our planets most diverse species. Some lizards and snakes are as old as dinosaurs! This might be your only chance to see a Komodo Dragon in the flesh, plus many other rare animals.

56th Street and Madison Avenue
Phone: 212-833-8100
Web: www.sonywondertechlab.com

Open Tuesday through Saturday - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday - Noon to 5 p.m.

Located in the Sony Plaza Public Arcade, the Sony Wonder Technology Lab is four floors of hands-on, interactive exhibits showcasing technology and communication. From grandchild to grandparent, there is plenty to see and do. Check out their state-of-the-art 73-seat HD theater and one-of-a-kind exhibits where you can jam with musical artists, produce your own movie preview and even create your own video games. And after you have learned a great deal about technology, be sure to pick up your graduation certificate from the Lab!

Exhibits Include:
The Communication Bridge
This showcases over 150 years of communication technology including such landmark inventions as the camera, telephone, radio and computer.

Technology Workshop
This is where the Audio Lab, Image Lab and Signal Viewers are located. In the Audio Lab, the whole family can learn how to add digital sound processing to movie clips. In the Image Lab, digitally paint pictures from a distance using cutting-edge drawing tools, backgrounds, colors and effects. After all that fun, check out the Signal Viewers installation to see the inner workings of these technologies.

Professional Studios
Try your hand at exciting careers that use communication technology! If you like robots, then try your hand in Factory Automation, where children can program a robot to perform simple assembly line tasks. Then head over to Remote Inspection, where you can control a robot to search for a leak.

If that doesn’t grab your attention, this will! In the Professional Studio, the entire family can edit a TV show inside the Television Production Studio for Sony Kids Wire or Sony Adventures. Then hit the set of Sony Pictures Entertainment Today and head for the teleprompter, as the show will soon begin broadcasting! Finally, you all can assume the role of a video editors at Sony Music Video Hits, and create a music video for Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams”.

Wonder of Imagination  
Come play in the future and learn about the past as you enter Wonder of Games. This fun interactive overview of computer/video games will be the highlight for any gamers in the family. In The Game is an awesome experience where kids get to try out the latest video game systems against a backdrop of video projections and digital surround sound. Families can also compose their own racing game at GameBuilder. You can choose your car and its body, style and color and even the landscape for your race! At the end, you get to see how your hot wheels did on the course.

Children can also make their own music at Wonder of Music, and then even hit post-production to produce a preview to your world premiere at MovieMaker. And as if that was not cool enough, make sure to see the Connect and Create exhibit. This treat for the whole family allows you to use your shadow to interact with vivid media projections while being surrounded by exciting imagery.

Log-Out
After a day of learning about technology at Song Labs, step up to one of the eight stations to receive your personalized certificate! This is the perfect souvenir to remember your trip to the future on display at this exciting museum.