For anyone who has seen a dinosaur riding on a trailer through town, your eyes are not deceiving you.

The Pigs-In-Flight Children’s Museum is changing out its exhibits this week in preparation of their reopening on Monday, Oct. 5.

“We are here to engage and enrich and educate the young kids in our community,” executive director Deborah Jefferson said. “Our theme is ‘Doing the unexpected for children, families and communities’ and that’s what we want to do.”

Every quarter the museum likes to shake things up by rotating in new displays while keeping some standard displays for a year.

“We’re going to maintain and keep some of the older exhibits that we had from last year, but we’re going to bring in new,” Jefferson said.

The new main attraction is dinosaurs, and the life-sized dinosaur stands open-mouthed in the gathering room, which is the first room of the museum. A fossil dig, bones and smaller dinos are going to be set up along the perimeter of the room for children to touch and discover.

“We had this idea the first of the year not knowing Jurassic World was going to come out,” Jefferson said.

She said the dinosaur came from Arkansas and stayed in storage for a couple months, and it will be a part of the museum for some time.

“It’s going to be a standard for the whole year,” Jefferson said.

Other changes will be to the fitness room, which will turn into a miniature golf course. The movie theater will continue with the addition of a puppet show. The tearoom, which featured an English themed tea party, will change to a Moroccan theme and will travel to other countries in the future.

The forest room will become a space launch. The fairytale room will change featured stories to “Three Billy Goats Gruff.” The kitchen will remain, but the recipes the children cook will change.

“The kitchen is all about learning math concepts from tablespoons, teaspoons, dividing and stuff like that,” Jefferson said.

An auto mechanic shop, a computer lab with computers donated by Kano, a clinic and a shoe store will open up to teach about Vicksburg’s history of being the first place to sell a right and left shoe in a box together. A spa will open to teach the children a couple of different lessons.

“That’s just learning about hygiene, why we have finger nails and we just bring things down to make it fun on a kids level,” Jefferson said.

Most all of the exhibits are book based and promote literature and vocabulary. The museum is also home to a few guinea pigs and birds.

The interactive museum is geared toward children 2 to 9 years old and opened just less than a year ago under the guidance of Alcorn State University professor Wanda Newell, who saw the need and wanted to open the museum to fill that need. Newell and Jefferson collaborate to come up with new attraction ideas for the museum. They welcome students to touch all the exhibits and to experience new things.

“You are going to be able to engage with your child. Your child is going to be able to see their hands making something,” Jefferson said. “And that’s what I believe what makes us special and what makes us different.”

Jefferson lights up at the thought of the looks of awe children get from the museum. She loves seeing the connection between families as they spend time together bonding over the things they learn. The children build memories with their families during their time at the museum, and the parents learn about their children’s interests.

“We focus on exhibits that involve parent and child engagement,” Jefferson said.

Starting Monday, Oct. 5, the museum will be open Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Saturday by appointment. In November, they will start opening from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays.

Admission is $12 for individuals, $10 for field trips and membership packages are available. The museum is also available for birthday parties. Call 601-456-4867 for more information.

“We want them to be able to feel successful and to see, ‘I can do this. It’s miniature, it’s down to my size, and I’m able to do what you did,’” Jefferson said.