Top Children's Musuems

We've been to a lot of children's museums around the country, thanks to our reciprocal membership from the Austin Children's Museum.  I thought it would make sense to rank them in order, and include some pictures, highlights, and areas for improvement for each of them.

1. Children's Museum of Houston

Wow - where to begin?  It's huge, has a real city with working ATM machines that give pretend money, a crime lab, police car, ambulance, vet office, restaurant and grocery store. It also has areas where kids can color and paint, and a huge outdoor water area where you can pump water through pipes.  Outside, they have real baby chickens and turtles, and a playground.  Here's a post from one of our visits.  One time we went and spent almost the entire day in a floor just for arts and crafts and building things from Legos and similar building materials.

Cons: Can't see it all in one day. 

2. Mississippi Children's Museum

Who would've guessed such a great, new children's museum would be in Jackson, Mississippi?  But I'm telling you, it's totally worth the drive.  Our favorite thing here is an actual car next to a gas pump that lets you pretend to fill it up.  On the bottom floor they have a huge larger-than-life-sized digestive track that you can crawl through, starting in the mouth and ending in a toilet!  I went through it backwards, of course.  They also have a neat build-it-yourself house, a good arts and crafts room and a decent grocery store.

They even have fountains in the front, that create a mini-splash pad.  It's also next to a fantastic park.  We've been here several times on our way to and from Atlanta.  Here's a post from one of our visits.

Cons: Like many children's museums, they are closed on Mondays.  Also, one of their playscapes dumps kids into a locked area that leaves them stuck if they are too little to climb out.  Dad had to get a museum employee to unlock it to get Hazel out, and the guy said it happens at least once a day.

3. McWane Science Center (Birmingham, AL)

Here's a post about one of our trips there.  They have  pretty good area for everyone to run around in, a bed of nails to lay on, a fun house (see left), and a really good water section.  But the highlight is the bubble room where you can make tons of giant bubbles and even stand inside a bubble.  They have a nice room downstairs for eating, a dinosaur section complete with a sand pit you can dig in.  There is also a great aquarium where you can touch sharks and see lots of different kinds of fish.

Cons: Surprisingly, this museum does not have a grocery store.  This seems to be a staple of children's museums, but not here.  Also, they have free parking for members, but not for reciprocal membership holders.

4. San Antonio Children's Museum

Since San Antonio is only about an hour away, we go to this one a LOT.  It's a pretty good museum.  When you first walk in, there is a train to sit in.  After climbing the first flight of stairs, there a very cool airplane that you can climb in with a very realistic cockpit.  Dad likes the air traffic control tower.  Hazel likes sitting on the luggage conveyor belt.  They have a reasonably nice reading room with a little house to climb around in.  On the bottom floor is a great area for eating, a cow you can milk ,some other farm animals, and the best grocery store of any children's museum.  It's sponsored by HEB, and has a really great collection of different foods.

There is lots of Spanish here too.

Cons: There's a big section at the front that's pretty lame.  It has construction things that pick up and dump balls - you see them at a lot of children's museums, but its not very well done here. 

5. Children's Museum Tucson

There are some pretty novel things in this museum.  In the first room they have a firetruck and a motorcycle that you can ride on, along with uniforms you can wear.  The next room has a Lego table where I spent a lot of time building things. They also have a neat room where you can write with light pens on the walls. This is very cool, and Hazel spent a lot of time doing that when we visited this museum. Then she went over to another room to draw on chalkboards. The last room we went in had fruit and vegetables you could pick from trees, shopping carts, and a kitchen with blenders.  I made Mom and Dad some smoothies.  I wish every museum had a kitchen like this.  Here's a post from our visit there.

Cons: They aren't 100% on the reciprocation plan, even though the children's museum association's website claims they are. We had to talk them into letting us in with our membership.

6. The Discovery Science Place (Tyler, TX)

Another surprising discovery, this great children's museum is in downtown Tyler, Texas.  Dad noticed it had great Yelp! reviews, and we all agree that the great reviews are well-deserved.

The museum is deceptively large, with several different rooms.  They also have some things we didn't see anywhere else.  In the picture to the right, you can see the human puzzle that Hazel and I liked to work together on.  They also have an ambulance you can climb in - too late for this guy though!  The museum has a fun restaurant and kitchen area, grocery store, hospital and vet office. 

Turner really appreciated the toddler area where he could crawl around freely and play with various toddler toys.  There is a rock climbing wall, which Hazel and I liked to use as a pretend bounce house.  There is a pretty cool science center that features a cave, a giant boat, and an area where you can play with golf balls and see the effects of gravity when the balls go over roller coasters and through spirals and other fun shapes.

Cons: No water area.  No great place for eating - we wound up sitting in a hallway by trash cans.  Also, limited parking available.

7. The Children's Museum of Atlanta

There are a lot of fun things to do in the Atlanta Children's Museum.

They have one section which is basically a giant whiteboard for paint.  You can paint it as much as you want, and when you're done, they have a special water device that cleans it off.

There is also a great sand area and a pretty large water area to play in.  They have a first class grocery area where the food moves from farm to grocery to kitchen.  I'm always impressed with the conveyor belt where you can load the farm food and groceries on an off a truck.  Here's a post about one of our visits there.

Cons: They have a neat theater section, but it's usually too loud.  It scared all of us.  Also, for a city the size of Atlanta, it's kind of small.

8.  Dallas Children's Museum

I have to be honest, we've only been here once, and I don't remember a lot about it.  It was at the end of a pretty long drive.  I remember it being fun, but not out-of-this-world fun like the museums above it on this list.  We'll put it here for now, and I'll update this next time we're up in Dallas.

9. Kids on the Fly (Chicago O'Hare Aiport)

Yes, this children's museum is actually located inside the Chicago airport.  This is an absolutely wonderful way to spend a layover.  Here is a post about one of our visits there, along with some reviews and pictures from TripAdvisor.  This museum is completely air-travel themed, with a helicopter, plane, control tower, and even a cargo bay.  We liked moving the cargo around and generally just running around between our flights.

Cons: Anything I say would be nit-picking, given that its inside an airport and completely free.  I guess, just don't expect a full-sized children's museum.

10. Austin Children's Museum

Obviously, this is the children's museum we've been to the most.  Given that, it's probably natural for us to be a bit more picky about it.

I'll start with the good.  The reciprocal membership we have with the ACM got us into all these other museums. What a great deal, and we could do it in a way that supports our own city!

The museum is pretty easy to get to, and the parking is pretty cheap after validation.  They have a great toddler area that is large, closed off, and has fun things to climb on.  They also rotate through special exhibits.  Some of the special exhibits have been great - the transportation exhibit featured a train we could climb on and the dinosaur exhibit had a pit we could dig in for fossils and dinosaurs we could climb on.

The museum is spread out over three floors, and I do love riding on the elevators.  They are just a little too easy to get to for Mom and Dad's taste, as we spend an awful lot of our time here riding up and down elevators.

They have a pretty good construction area, where you can sort shapes and build things.  They also have an electric train that travels around the museum.

Cons: Way, way too crowded.  Everything is smashed together, and some of the staircases feel downright dangerous.  The whole place is pretty small. I hear they are looking at moving to a different location, which may help alleviate the space issues. The electric train is usually broken. Some of the things in the toddler area also do not work. This museum feels a little bit dirtier than most.  And there is not water area, sand area, or arts and crafts area to speak of.

11. Insights El Paso Science Center

Mom says it isn't really fair to put this at the bottom, since its not really a children's museum, but we ranked other science centers, so I wanted to at least mention it.  I guess what I would say is that if you are stuck in El Paso due to a snowstorm, there are worst places you could go.  They did have an area where you could build with blocks and crawl around on mats, but it wasn't blocked off, so it wasn't great for a toddler area.  Most of the rest of the stuff there is probably geared toward older kids.