homeschooling moon children

When I tell you Claremont, Ca is my favorite city, its my FAVORITE!!! This gem of a city is located 30 miles east of LA but still in Los Angeles County. It sits at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and is this quiet little college town. It’s commonly known as “The City of Trees and Ph.Ds.” This city has many many trees, historic buildings and home to the Claremont Colleges.

It’s in one of these Claremont Schools “The Webb Schools” you will find the Raymond M. Alf Museum! This 4000 sq ft museum is dedicated to the study of Paleontology. These museum is unique as it has “Circular Exhibits” so you walk around and come back to where you began and walk down the stairs to the next part. We went on a saturday so we didn’t get to see the students working in the bottom floor. It gave off this Jurassic Park feel of watching them work while you explore.

There are 2 Halls “Hall of Life” showcases the Earth’s History. They hope it inspires you the visitor to seek appreciation for your current place in the Earth and how you contribute to the history of Earth. You walk through areas highlighting life forms from four major eras of geologic time. And see fossils big and small which was great for the girls to get a size for what dinosaurs looked like. Also get to experience student and staff exhibits featuring current and past research. This is inspiring for my girls as they at times want to be a Paleontologist or even Archeologist so to see these things up close gives them insight to the work load that goes into this field of study.

The other hall is the “Hall of Footprints” this hall I found fantastic for Kennedy! Kennedy in the early school year studied the early days of California, which this hall had many things from that era. Tracks found in Mojave Desert, to bear-dog and camels! This is the floor you can see the fossil preparation lab and a collections storage room, through windows cut into the walls. They told us during the week they are in there working and on event days. So we have to come back.

The museum is open Wednesday -Friday 11am-5pm and Saturday from 10am-5pm. Tickets average $12-9 and kids under 4 are free. Something I find its important to share is that Alf Museum participates in “Museums for All” this is inititave is for those who receive EBT or Snap benefits; they want to encourage families of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly and build lifelong museum habits. This is great because these museums can get costly and if its out of budget your child shouldn’t miss out on a great experience. Visit Museums for All to get a list of which museums participate if you are a recipient of these benefits.

Overall this museum was a great trip and local to us here. I encourage you to check local colleges and you will be surprised what’s around. We will come back and hang out again it there is so much more we can document and see!

xx,
rosemary