Founded in 1913 by a group of teachers in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood, Boston Children's Museum began a "hands-on" tradition long before that phrase became commonplace.

As early as 1913, it meant engaging youth in identifying and marking nature walks, preparing specimens, making clay and wax models for exhibits, and even attempting a working model of the metropolitan water system.

The 1920's and 1930's began an era of Museum sponsored clubs that gave children the opportunity to explore the unfamiliar with naturalist hikes and bus trips.

In the 1960's, Michael Spock (museum director 1962-85) led the institution in revolutionizing the traditional museum experience, getting objects out of cases and into children's hands in exhibit areas where children could interact, experiment, and follow their own curiosity. Hands-on learning is now a part of American education and we are proud to have had a "hand" in it from the beginning.

Today, after 90 years, Boston Children's Museum exists to help children understand and enjoy the world in which they live. As an early museum experience for children, our environment is informal, but our purpose is serious. We want children to grow up feeling secure and self-confident with respect for others and the natural world. We encourage imagination, curiosity, questioning, and realism. We provide opportunities for new insights, involvement with the world and understanding of human differences with world-class exhibits and programs.

Mission
Boston Children’s Museum exists to help children and families enjoy, understand and become active citizens of the world in which they live. We want children to grow up as successful learners who respect others and the natural world. We encourage imagination, curiosity, investigation, innovation, and play. Central to our philosophy is the belief that meaningful interactions with real objects, direct engagement and enjoyment promote learning.

Vision
Building on our new facilities and on our rededication to our role as an urban museum serving children 0-10, their families and educators, we will:

• Expand our collaborations to help “level the sandbox” for the most vulnerable children in Greater Boston;


• Increase our engagement with the newest, immigrant families of Boston, linking them with the rich, educational and cultural resources of the City;


• Become a “teaching” museum that integrates research on learning and family engagement with the need to train a new generation of diverse museum educators;


• Deepen our competencies in the arts, early science, health, environmental stewardship and cultural diversity through more academic partnerships, more staff training and more evaluation of exhibits and related programming;


• Build Children’s Wharf Park on land and water as an active, accessible outdoor learning experience that attracts the broadest possible audience to the downtown waterfront.