Right now, our 6 year old is interested in dinosaurs. Lots of kids are found this age (+/-3 years) are, but, after visiting SOME PLACE with my parents back in November, and getting some dinosaur Lego sets from their 삼촌 (honorary uncle) for Christmas, her excitement and interest has really grown. In fact, she told us she wanted to study “dinosaur science” for school, so, this summer, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
A friend very kindly gifted us with some tickets to Thanksgiving Point’s Dinosaur Island, where over 30 life-size animatronic dinosaurs are dispersed throughout Ashton Gardens. And it was such a fun experience!
Though we had recently seen realistic, and life-size dinosaur models at PLACE, having them move around actually changed the feel from, “Huh!” to, “Yeah, I would definitely be scared of this”.
With each dinosaur, there was some information about it: when it lived, what it ate, and sentence or two about it. Perfect for little kids; or large groups trying to learn, but also keep track of lots of people (who may or may not be small and darty). Our kids especially liked the Speed, Strength, and Danger rating, as it was visual (5-point rating), and therefore easy to understand.
Since the dinosaurs were out and about in spaces where you could move all around, or most of the way around them, it really helped you grasp the scale, and how the real thing would be in the space, as opposed to having it behind a rope with only one side available to see it from.
With our late Spring, and cool June, the weather was perfect, and the grounds were beautiful. We took our time to really learn about each dinosaur (we recommend attempting to do the map in alphabetical order, so you don’t worry about missing anything, and keeping things in your head!).
I liked the triceratops and t-rex show-down, because they were so huge. One of the very last dinosaurs (minimal spoilers) was also extremely scary, so that was cool to end on. Todd was a fan of the deinonychus pack. Our 6 year old’s favourite was the pterodactyl, because they are her favourite anyway, and she was delighted to get a picture by one. And our 3 year old liked the dinosaur eggs, and mom + baby styracosauruses.
If you have any kiddos—present, or parts of yourself—that have any interest in dinosaurs, this event is definitely worth checking out. I’m not usually one for going b a c k to Thanksgiving Point exhibits, because of the drive, and I may not go back to this one, but I would be open to it, because we all had such a nice time!
This year, Dinosaur Island is running until August 26 2023.
