Tacoma Children's Museum

Jacob and I are out of town visiting a dear friend in Washington on a very abbreviated trip. With 14 month old Jacob and my friend's almost 3 year old and new born, the Tacoma Children's Museum seemed like an amazing and appropriate place to visit. 

It was pretty stinking awesome. 

There is no entrance fee. The attendant at the door explained they are the first museum of its kind to offer a "pay what you can" entrance. There is no required or even suggested donation. Whatever you can afford, you cough up. I figured $10 sounded appropriate, so that's what I gave. Children are encouraged to touch, play and explore but parents must stay nearby. Children running amok is frowned upon. Adults must be accompanied by a child otherwise childless adults are escorted into the museum by an employee. I learned this from ear hustling when a lady said her sister was already inside with the kid. Very nice touch. 

Five minutes in and I decided this place was pretty nifty. There were so many places to explore and things to play with. There were stairs to climb, wood blocks, knobs, buttons, and levers to touch, windows to look through, puzzles to complete, and bridges to cross. There were animal wings to put on and capes to wear. There was a room devoted to creating art - painting, stamping, drawing. But the piece de resistance was the water exploring section. There were several large basins and tables filled with water, some connected with flowing waterfalls, and a gazillion different toys to play in the water with. There were blocks you could rearrange to play with water current. There was a wall with levers that could change the angle of slats underneath falling water. There were balls and strainers and funnels and toys and fountains. Jacob was in heaven. Surprisingly he didn't get very wet either. 

After spending quite some time at the water tables we moved on to an indoor grassy area and a huge magnet wall. Jacob's inner engineer was enjoying arranging magnetic pipes around a huge board and then having ping long balls get dropped through them to see what they would do. We finished out our visit with a stop at the small cafe where I was able to buy two bottles of water for $1.64. 

I was definitely impressed with the museum and would visit many times over if I was nearby. Not only was I impressed with museum setup, I was also impressed with the children visitors. I didn't see very much pushing or yelling or running. I don't think I heard a single tantrum. And I'm pretty sure I only saw one child whose parental representation wasn't clearly noticeable. But she was older and one out of several dozen ain't bad. The museum attendants were available but also hands-off. Children were truly allowed to explore and discover on their own. 

Enjoy some blurry photos. There wasn't much break in movement.