Boston Children's Museum
Children's museum · South Boston Waterfront
308 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210
Highlights
Hands-on exhibits, bubble room, climbing structure, dinosaur area
Hands-on exhibits, bubble room, climbing structure, dinosaur area
"The Boston Children’s Museum is, arguably, THE model for children’s museums across the country. There’s lots to engage with in this highly hands-on space—from a room full of Rube Goldberg-esque golf ball machines to sensory areas of all sorts (water tables, bubble tanks, giant foam block-building…). In the middle of the museum, extending three vertical floors, is a blobby, free-form vertical maze, enmeshed in netting, that your little one can climb in and through—much to the envy of the adults who are too tall to fit inside. Outside, the boardwalk park is home to special events, science experiments, and snacks served from a giant Hood milk bottle and adjacent café." - Branding Iron @ Stantec
"A three-story institution designed to stoke children’s curiosity with playful science exhibits, theater performances, and hands-on programming that encourages exploratory, tactile learning for little ones." - Sarah Bruning Sarah Bruning Sarah Bruning is the special projects and surveys editor at Travel + Leisure, where she has been on staff since 2018. She assigns stories across the magazine, primarily for the Experiences section and feature well. Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines
"Housed in a former warehouse along the Fort Point channel, Boston Children’s Museum has three floors of experiential learning areas for kids and kids at heart. It's one of the biggest children’s museums in the world, with the permanent collection to prove it: Its holdings include some 25,000 items that range from ancient artifacts to natural history specimens, historic objects, and rare dolls. Most of the exhibits favor immersive, hands-on learning—don’t be surprised when you walk into a bubble-making room, the “Dinos in Space” area featuring two favorite kid subjects, or the “You, Me, We!” exhibit, which encourages families to connect with each other around questions of fairness in the world. Be sure to check out Martin’s Park, a public playground behind the museum that opened in June 2019, and the second-floor PlaySpace for the youngest kids (0-3), which reopened in February 2020 after a complete redo. (General admission tickets must be booked in advance for the three-hour morning or afternoon time slots; one-hours slots within your ticketed time can then be booked specifically for the PlaySpace.)" - Elizabeth Wellington, Andrew Sessa
"The Boston Children’s Museum knows a thing or two about keeping kids amused and entertained—it's been doing it for more than a century. An unmissable landmark on Fort Point Channel (look for the giant Hood milk bottle), the museum has an eclectic collection of exhibits and interactive areas, including an authentic Japanese silk merchant’s home that was donated by Boston ’s sister city, Kyoto . Parents and kids alike can clamber through a three-story vertical maze; there’s an entire room devoted to playing with bubbles; and the third floor is largely given over to a kid-size construction zone where aspiring builders can work on projects, scurry through pipes and cargo-net bridges, and take the wheel of a Bobcat payloader. A performing-arts program introduces children to dance, music, and theater—don’t be surprised if you find your formerly shy son or daughter up onstage by day’s end."
"The Boston Children’s Museum knows a thing or two about keeping kids amused and entertained—it's been doing it for more than a century. An unmissable landmark on Fort Point Channel (look for the giant Hood milk bottle), the museum has an eclectic collection of exhibits and interactive areas, including an authentic Japanese silk merchant’s home that was donated by Boston ’s sister city, Kyoto . Parents and kids alike can clamber through a three-story vertical maze; there’s an entire room devoted to playing with bubbles; and the third floor is largely given over to a kid-size construction zone where aspiring builders can work on projects, scurry through pipes and cargo-net bridges, and take the wheel of a Bobcat payloader. A performing-arts program introduces children to dance, music, and theater—don’t be surprised if you find your formerly shy son or daughter up onstage by day’s end."
