Boston Children's Museum, Boston Overview

The second oldest children’s museum in the United States, the Boston Children’s Museum is one of Boston’s most renowned and loved museums by all children who visit it. The Children’s Museums has a range of simple but informative exhibits. The museum has programs related to culture, performance arts, and literary arts to showcase the flourishing talent of children who visit.

Located on Congress street the 100-year-old nonprofit and private Children's Museum in Boston has not only seen a growth in the number of visitors but also in the quality of the exhibits and education. They have exhibits ranging from arts labs to KEVA parks and Japanese houses. In addition to this, they also have a wide range of plants on their Green trail exhibit and a dinosaur exhibit which attracts many children because of its well crafted and intricate statues to provide a better visual experience for the younger generation. Housing over 50,000 artifacts the Children's Museum provides a wide scope of learning and experience for the children to adapt to the development of science and technology.

Exciting Things to Do at the Museum

The family and children friendly museum at Boston is an ideal place for the children to learn and grow as individuals. They get a high quality of general knowledge and an insight into the basics of science and technology. Here’s a list of the things they must do when they visit the Children's Museum at Boston:

New Balance Climb: The New Balance climb is perfect for a little adventurous and enthusiastic children who enjoy climbing, jumping, and walking around. The New Balance Climb was made the main focus of them interacting and finding a way out through the already crowded climb.
The Science Playground: The Science playground is ideal for children with a passion for exploring and inventing. Here they get a chance to explore with bubbles and the instruments used to make them. They can make and create their own small or big bubbles. The children should also be a little cautious of the slippery floor due to the bubbles.
Kid Power: This exhibit is for children who have immense amounts of energy, using their own energy they can ride bikes and jump on seats to get objects moving.
Johnny’s workbench: Johnny's workbench is where the children get a real insight into the working of tools and can also create their own objects using the same tools and wood.
The Common: The Common is a large room made for gatherings and games for children. Visitors often get to play a game of live checkers or even musical chairs!
Peep’s World: This exhibit is known for its exuberantly designed lake where children can open dams and send ships and create fake waterfalls.
STEAM events: Visitors should look at the STEAM ( Science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) events that take place. These hour-long family events get the young hands and minds working on the STEAM fields.
Snowmaking: During the winters the Children’s Museum gets into the holiday spirit and decorates the museum. For the children, they have a golden meatball, indoor ice skating rink, and holiday concerts too.

How to reach Boston Children's Museum

The exact address of the Children's Museum is 308 Congress Street in Boston. The museum is accessible by train, road, car, and walking.
-By train: The park is accessible by both the south station as well as the courthouse station. To reach both of these stations visitors must use the red line on the MBTA as it would be the easiest to reach the museum. Once the visitors are out of the stations it is around a 10-minute walk to the museum. When one sees a 40 feet milk bottle they should follow that direction since its the entrance of the Children’s Museum.
-By car: To reach the museum by car a visitor can use applications like google maps to get the best and most convenient results by putting the address as 308 Congress Street, Boston. There are several parking spots around the Children's Museum like-
321 Congress St. - Valet. Excellent.
17 Farnsworth St. - Farnsworth Garage. Excellent.
75 Sleeper St. - One Seaport Garage.
11 Stillings St. - Garage.
65 Seaport Blvd. - Yotel Boston - Valet Garage
-Walking: If visitors live in and around Congress street the museum is easily accessible on foot as the 40 feet milk bottle showing the entrance of the park.
-By bus: There are several bus stations in and around congress street. The most used bus station is route number 7 which crosses Downtown street close to the museum. Bus number 459 also travels from Salem to the top of Congress street where the Children's Museum is located. The walk here is extremely short and straight to the museum.

Exhibits at the Museum

There are more than 20 exhibits at the Boston Children’s Museum. These exhibits each explore different sections of science and education to make learning easy for children. The exhibits are interactive and children have a lot of fun while learning from these exhibits. Over the years, various exhibits have been added and removed from the museum.

Here is the list of all the exhibits of the Boston Children’s Museum;-

Art Lab
Arther and Friends
Boston Black
Bubbles
Construction Zone
Countdown to kindergarten
Explorasaurus
Investigate
Japanese House
Japanese House Gallery
Jonny’s Workbench
Keva Planks
Kid Power
Kid Stage
New Balance Foundation Climb
Our Green Trail
Peep’s world
Playspace
Public Art
Raceways
STEAM Lab
The Common
The Gallery

All these exhibits are different from one another and offer newer mediums to make learning fun for the kids and teachers. They include fun activities and interactive lessons to teach the kids. These activities make the kids more knowledgeable about subjects and also encourage kids to take up different projects.

Hood Milk Bottle

The Hood Milk bottle is a giant wooden 40ft milk bottle next to the Boston Children’s Museum. The bootle hood was made in 1930 by a local ice-cream vendor. A big milk bottle at that time was a very fascinating structure and gained a lot of popularity. After multiple sales and acquisitions, it was finally sold to Boston Children’s Museum by HP Hood in 1977.

However, the name of HP Hood and son's dairy was restored on the bottle. Since then, the Hood Milk Bottle has been a huge landmark and a famous ice-cream shop in Boston, having customers from all over the country. The bottle is so huge that it can accommodate 58,620 gallons of milk inside it. The Hood Bottle milk now serves snacks and ice-cream, similar to what it's the first-ever owner did when he created the huge milk bottle.

Programs at the Museum

The Boston CHildren’s Museum has some of the most useful and fun programs for kids. These programs refer to various periodical workshops and activities that the museum holds to encourage the kids to learn new things. These activities are proudly appreciated by teachers and parents alike.

The programs offered by the Boston Children’s Museum are:-

Created by Festival - The Created By festival is possibly the biggest festival and program organized by the Boston Children’s Museum. It attracts institutions from all over the city to take part in the festival. It's an annual showcase festival that gives students the opportunity to show their talents and learning in different fields and subjects.
Cultures - Through the cultures program, the Boston Children’s Museum introduces diverse and new cultures and their lifestyles to kids and parents. This enables the children to interact with different cultures and learn more about them.
Health and Wellness
Literacy
Performing Arts
Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math
STEAM Family Workshops
Tech Kitchen
Visiting Artist Workshops
Visual Arts
Special events and other workshops

History of the Museum

The Boston Children's Museum is one of the greatest accomplishments of the Science Teachers bureau who opened the museum in 1913 with the help of the Women’s education association. Being the second oldest children’s museums in the United States of America with over 100 years of experience in providing joyful and fun ways of educating kids.

In the early years, the museum opened various centers all over the city of Boston to make its services available to kids all over the city. By 1935, the museum had various centers all over the city and the leaders decided that they needed a unified much larger space in order to keep the museum operational and beneficial for the kids. Hence, the leaders bought a new place at 60 Burroughs Street on the Jamaica Way. The new Boston Children’s museum became operational on November 18, 1936.

The museum again changed their address in 1979. This time to the fort point channel. Since then, the museum has made great developments and advancements in the fields of education. It added multiple educational exhibits and even made a $47million expansion and renovation investment in 2006. It is one of the most popular destinations in the city for educational visits for students and teachers alike.