The Bay Area Discovery Museum is just over the Golden Gate Bridge. It is housed in what looks to be an old military complex. Each of the smallish white buildings in the museum is themed. In the main building are exhibits relating to science and technology -- movie-making, computers, plant and animal biology, and vision science. Our eleven-year-olds enjoyed the stop motion animation setup that allowed them to easily film their own movie. The younger set played age-appropriate computer games, zipped through the maze, experimented with making parts of bodies disappear using special effects tricks, planted seeds and observed the critters in the basement. The main building also houses the museum store, which sells some nifty arts supplies, books and other artifacts. The older kids all bought velvet bags which they could stuff with as many rocks as the bags would hold. They drooled over the watercoloring pencils, but these were pretty expensive. Everyone wanted a beany-baby bat.

I don't know all that went on in the tot building -- it's for those ages three and under with their escorts. Our 11-year olds borrowed the younger kids so they could get in. They all disappeared into the tot room for so long that we had to send a search party in after them. By all reports, though, it was fun.

There was dress-up, juggling and hula-hooping in the central courtyard, which was also a nice place to just sit and gaze at the scenery. There's a separate building for parties, a great idea. It kept our children from wandering over to mooch other people's birthday cake and open other kids' presents. Another building houses some antique vehicles the kids climbed on, and, in another, we bought our very palatable lunches. (There were many kid-appropriate choices, as well as interesting ones obviously targetted at adults.) We did decide to eat outside, although it ended up a bit too windy for comfort. The carousel was not in operation while we visited, but looks like fun. One or two other buildings were closed. Maybe next time.

One caveat -- on a very rainy day, this museum might have been less enjoyable; we'd have gotten sopped walking between buildings.

Here's a link to their site.