Pictures from the Minneapolis Children's Museum

I'll also add more detailswhen I get home. Overall impressions - very popular place for families; exhibits had lots of dress up opportunities and areas for little ones to play in while the older kids played; a wide age range from babies to preschoolers; huge exhibit areas; lots of stroller parking; fun place to explore; lots of volunteers and great signage.

This money collector attracts lots of kids and is cool! You put change at the top of the round thing and it spirals down to the center - strangely hypnotic I'm not sure what it's called but it's strategically located next to the entrance to the gigantic museum gift shop. Good way to collect extra money!

I was impressed by the look and signage of the museum. Here is the entrance to their huge gift store. The store was full of children's clothing, toys, water bottles, puzzles, all sorts of trinkets.






"Adventures with Clifford" - traveling exhibit developed by the Minneapolis Children's Museum in partnership with Scholastic.
The museum develops traveling exhibits which mostly travel to children's museums and science museums. They have a basement for storage and use V Corp. for production of their larger scale exhits. They also develop "Discovery Trunks" which they lend to schools.


Exterior picture of museum - featured Clifford and a gigantic advertisement for Target free nights every 3rd Sunday







"Curiosity Center" - craftroom with different projects depending on the themes of their exhibits. Plenty of craft materials availab
le and well used sink!






These fish were awesome! One of the best things I liked about the museum were these huge fish suspended from the ceiling - their fins and tails moved with the ventilation and looked amazing.










"Habitot" play area for children 6 months - 48 months - looks empty in this shot but the second time I went around it was packed! The Pond was a soft little area for babies, the Hills featured a slide, the forest had a little cave section with a quote "Hiding is almost important as being found."



The museum is very big - 65,000 square feet! 4 stories of very interactive exhibits which had cool stuff for older kids as well as babies. Two of their most popular permanent galleries were "World Works" and "Our World." "World Works" had a Paper Recycling Factory where kids could make new paper from old newspapers and press medallions from paper pulp.


"Rooftop Art Park" - tree house, glass studio (craft area for kids where time slots were reserved for Family Arts 6pm-7:30pm, and classes for kids 10am - 1:30, open exploration 2pm - 5pm), water painting exhibit, sandbox area; scent garden, and a weird color leaf exhibit where kids could attach different colored stips of fabric to fake vines (didn't seem too exciting for the kids.)






One of my favorite things at the musuem was the Spark Cart. Children could come up to the mobile cart and do facepainting using little premade kits of face paint. The cart was swamped whenever we passit it. Very popular and easy to maintain!






I really liked the museum signage! Creative use of materials.









Water Works exhibit from the "World Works" gallery. Several smaller water exhibits made up this gallery. A fun bubble area was very popular. To maintain the area, staff emptied out the water every night and cleaned the stations every night too. Notice the little aprons on the hooks? Every exhibit in the museum seemed to have a dress up component.

The "Our World" gallery was very impressive. The decor was set up like a little town (loved the road carpet.) Half of a Metro bus, A Uniform Shop, Our World Market, Studio Express, Post Office, Medical Clinic, and Community Gallery created a very dynamic and exciting atmosphere.

Kids were running around having a great time. They were dressing up in the uniform shop, using the blue screen in the Studio Express shaking maracas and dancing around because they could see themselves on the tv monitors. Their park area was in the middle of the exhibit where toddlers could use puzzles and do other activities while the older kids played inside the exhibits. One of the fun exhibits in here was the Asian restaurant featuring woks!

"Earth World" was huge and featured a section called the Ant Hill. Kids could dress up as ants and make their way through an ant hill. The area also featured a wide open area with big logs for kids to climb through and a loft area where they conducted animal related programs twice a week. They also played the sounds of birds chirping which gave the place more atmosphere.

More cute signage

The Paper Factory from the "World Works" area.

In the loft of the "Earth World" area, they hads books for kids to look through. The bookcase was located next to the area where they hold animal related programs 2 times a day

Lobby area - stairway to access upper floors, elevator to the right of the staircase. The security station is located where I am taking the picture. People are given stickers to indicate they have paid. It was a wide open and welcoming area. The big gift shop is located to the left of the entrance.