Go Figure! - opened September 14, 2007

Go Figure! features six large book components that start at the top of the front stairs in Gilbert House with Goldilocks and the Three Bears - you can see the front of the book very well from the landing on the steps. Right outside the door to the exhibit is a book component with activity extension brochures and information listing the books in the exhibit. As you walk in the bright, colorful room you are greeted by four additional large book components: Frog and Toad Are Friends, The Quilt, Arthur's Pet Shop, and The Doorbell Rang. Each book component has a fun, hands-on activity for children and information on the math connections for the adults.

Visitors to the new China exhibit will be immersed in a model of spaces that reflect the culture of today's Chinese children through hands-on components, activities, and decor. The exhibit contains elements for pretend and role-play such as a pavilion, a character writing station, traditional costumes for dress-up, a popular Chinese game, and artifacts and music of the region. A photomural depicting the Great Wall of China, a whimsical painted mural of pandas in a bamboo forest, and a mural of the countryside in China will adorn the walls of the exhibit room.

The exhibit features pictures and journal entries of two local Chinese girls, who were adopted into families from the United States as babies from an orphanage in Beijing. The girls and their families traveled to China last July as part of a Families With Children From China excursion to see their birth country.