Boston Children’s Museum has been building innovative, meaningful, and fun exhibits for 95 years. Our emphasis on hands-on engagement and learning through experience has inspired museums worldwide. Designed for children and families, our exhibits focus on science, culture, environmental awareness, health & fitness, and the arts. Our public programming is organized around developing Creative, Curious, Green, Global and Healthy Kids.

Art Studio
The Art Studio is a fun and messy activity space where children and families make art together. Lively and well equipped, the Art Studio offers unusual opportunities for creative expression led by professional artist-educators. Children and families can explore a variety of processes and materials from paper collage and printmaking to sculpting 3D forms with clay, paper, fabric or felt. Ideal for children 5 years old and up, the Art Studio welcomes all visitors seeking to discover their inner artist.

Arthur™ and Friends
Arthur and Friends immerses visitors in imaginative settings based on Marc Brown’s beloved books and the popular WGBH television series. Arthur, Binky, Buster, and D.W. come to life as kids role-play in the Read Family Kitchen, Mr. Ratburn’s Classroom, the Backyard Sleepover, and Nurse Flynn’s Office. Co-pilot an airplane with Buster and his Dad. Join Arthur and his buddies on TV. Participatory plays about Arthur show regularly on KidStage.

Boston Black: A City Connects
Did you know that there is tremendous diversity within the Black community? In Boston Black, everyone is talking about race, ethnicity, identity, and community. Visit Boston’s neighborhoods and help decorate a Haitian float for the Afro-Caribbean Carnival celebration. Shop for tropical fruits and vegetables at the Dominican store. Get your hair done - and hear the neighborhood news - at John Smith’s Barbershop and African Queen Beauty Salon. Dance the funana dance at the Cape Verdean Café Fogo. Learn how Boston’s Black community shapes Boston.

The Common
For games and gatherings, The Common is the place to play. Try out magical light and shadow games. Find your way through a giant maze. Play the musical chairs. Create colorfully lighted patterns and designs. Learn new games and play old favorites, like the giant chess game. From dance performances to live animal meet and greets, The Common will feature a lively calendar of events.

Construction Zone
Dig, build - and tear down - in Construction Zone! Ride a real Bobcat, grab the jackhammer, and deploy a convoy of trucks in your own construction site. Construction Zone is a kid-sized world of building. Ramps, tunnels, and bridges give children the tools to imagine a city in transition. A low steel walk lets you pretend balance on a high beam. The trailer is a place to experiment with every imaginable building block.

The Gallery
A flexible space for arts related exhibits and activities

The Alan and Harriet Lewis Family Global Gallery
The 2,500-square-foot Global Gallery hosts outstanding children’s exhibits from all over the country.

Japanese House
Walk down the street, take off your shoes, and step into an authentic two-story silk merchant’s home from Kyoto, Japan. Explore every corner of this fully equipped Japanese House reconstructed in Boston by Japanese carpenters. Discover Japanese family life, customs, ceremonies, art, architecture and seasonal events in the fully functional 100-year-old house inside the Museum. Monthly activities offer seasonal experiences in daily life now and long ago.

Johnny’s Workbench
Since 1985, Johnny’s Workbench has provided an intimate workshop space for kids and families to work with hand tools and natural materials. The newly updated version, created by Boston Children’s Museum and generously funded by The Home Depot, takes this one step further with children and their families using tools to complete a small woodworking project. Kids can practice fine motor skills while building things and solving design problems. Johnny’s Workbench inspires families to work on projects at home together.

Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family Foundation KidStage
A newly designed, state-of-the-art, 160-seat theater, KidStage introduces children and families to the magic of theater and the performing arts. Professional actors perform original participatory short plays. Directed by City Stage, a professional theater company specializing in educational children’s theater, KidStage has daily performances of 15-30-minute plays that use music, song, movement, and comedy to tell memorable stories. When dark, KidStage has costumes and props for improvised plays and role-playing. KidStage also features multicultural music, dance and puppet performances.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Kid Power
Kid Power will inspire families to lead healthier, more active lives. It’s all about power in and power out. Whether you’re power pedaling, lighting up the interactive dance floor, climbing the walls, or on power pump seats, families will find new ways to get exercise, and learn about super foods, good breakfasts, and other ways to eat and drink right. Getting healthy is easier when your family has fun doing it together!

New Balance Climb
Never before – a 3-story climbing sculpture made of brightly painted curved platforms, rising like a fleet of magic carpets up the new glass lobby of Boston Children’s Museum. Children will delight trying safe risk-taking as they find their way through the 3D, full body puzzle. Estimating space, planning moves, and choosing paths are all part of the learning in this complex space. Parents will follow the route on the stairs alongside the sculpture while enjoying a fantastic panorama of downtown Boston.

Our Green Trail
Sponsored by Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation (in-house exhibit) and National Grid (online game)

Our Green Trail highlights the green aspects of the Museum's building and grounds. The exhibit is comprised of an introductory panel and six stations located throughout the Museum. Each station focuses on a particular green aspect of the Museum.

• Invitation to Play Our Green Trail: The first panel introduces visitors to Our Green Trail and invites them to visit the other stations around the Museum.


• Green Roof Pinball: Play a pinball game to "catch the raindrops" and learn more about how the Museum's green roof catches rainwater.


• Know the Flow: Learn more about the Museum's low-flow toilets and play a game to match up everyday tasks with the amount of water it takes to complete them.


• What Goes Around: Play a game to match up an object with what it becomes after it is recycled.


• Amazing Spaces: Learn about the importance of appreciating the natural environment. Navigate a maze in order to find your way to the Museum.


• Bright Ideas: Learn about the importance of conserving energy and determine the best way to light the Museum.


• Validation Station: Log Green Ideas collected from the stations in the Museum and sign up for www.OurGreenTrail.org to continue playing at home.

The Carolyn and Peter Lynch Early Learning Gallery
Each exhibit in the gallery provides young children and families with opportunities to play and grow, see how the world works, and "mess around" with interesting materials, objects, models and specimens. The gallery includes Peep's World and the PlaySpace exhibits.

• Peep's World invites parents and their budding young explorers to investigate the science of sand, the wonder of water and the amazing shapes in shadows. Dig up some hidden treasures in Raven’s Ravine, explore the waterfall in Catfish Creek, and make your very own scary shadows in the Deep Dark woods. Peep’s World gives children ages three to five a chance to develop important everyday science skills like observing, comparing and predicting; offers tips for parents to continue the science learning at home; and transports visitors into the world of the characters from WGBH’s Emmy award-winning science program “Peep and the Big Wide World.” Parents and children alike will learn alongside Peep, Chirp and Quack that science, and science learning, can be found anywhere! (Supported by NSF) The Peep and the Big Wide World Exhibit is produced in collaboration with WGBH Educational Foundation™ 2009

• PlaySpace Inspired by the latest research in early childhood development, PlaySpace is designed to engage young children ages 0 – 3 years old – and inform parents about the work of childhood: play. In this wonderfully playful environment, young visitors can climb up a tree house, cross bridges, and slide down. They can get inside a huge toy train landscape, drive a car, or take care of the babies while playing house. Everyday, the Messy Sensory area offers arts and science activities. The gated infant area has plenty of soft space for crawlers and a cozy waterbed. The Family Resource Room provides recommended resources, parenting information, as well as a quiet space for reading and snacking.

• Countdown to Kindergarten! Sponsored by The Institute of Museum and Library Services with matching funds from Jane's Trust, The Barr Foundation, The Lincoln & Terese Filene Foundation, State Street Corporation and United Way of Massachusetts Bay.

  Are you ready for Kindergarten? This model classroom welcomes kids to take part in a typical Kindergarten experience while adults can ask staff "teachers" questions they may have about Kindergarten. Ride the bus to school, put your belongings in a backpack, and choose an activity that will help you practice going to Kindergarten!

  Being ready for Kindergarten can make all the difference in a child's introduction to formal education. When families work together to prepare a child for school, everybody knows more about what to expect and what they can do to support their child. The Countdown to Kindergarten! classroom includes a math and science area, dramatic play area, reading and writing corner, and creative arts area. Parents and teachers will find resources to support many aspects of a child's development including curiosity, social and emotional maturity, independence skills, and physical health.

  This exhibit also serves as a training center for child care providers and teachers; a place to share insights and discuss how best to help students from their first days of preschool and school. Hop on the bus and let's get going!

John Hancock Science Playground
"Notice, wonder, question, play" is the motto of this lively activity center. Visitors are invited to use all their senses to explore the natural world in Investigate; to test the laws of motion with golf balls and quirky tracks in Raceways; or experiment with creating beautiful orbs of many shapes and sizes in Bubbles. Playing in Science Playground builds all the most important skills of scientific inquiry, as visitors observe, measure, compare, discuss, and work together, and explore the world around them.

YMEC
The Youth Museum Exhibit Collaborative was founded in 1990 to develop and travel engaging exhibits for children, their parents, teachers, and caregivers. YMEC is an innovative response to the rapid growth of children's museums and the increasing demand for high quality, educational, and fun interactive experiences. Boston Children's Museum, as part of the collaboration, has developed and hosted several traveling exhibits.