Get ready for a truly fang-tastic experience at the Museum! We will be offering frightfully fun activities and programs to kids of all ages from October 14 through November 1. And don't forget to buy tickets to our 7th annual Halloween Spooktacular—Saturday, October 24 from 5-8pm. You are sure to have a fa-BOO-lous time!
OPEN NOW thru January 3, 2027! Explore our new traveling exhibit and join The Pigeon, the wily city bird, and his friends as you learn about their rich social and emotional lives. In this exhibit you can make Elephant and Piggie dance with old-time animation, put on a wearable bus and take a drive around the exhibit, dress up Naked Mole Rat, and much more!
Come experience our brand new Dream it! Build it! exhibit today! This fun new exhibit will empower children and the adults in their lives to dream up, design, and build things that make our world a better place. Experience real tools, real collaboration, and real joy as you try out construction, architecture, and engineering challenges.
Come visit the Japanese House Gallery for our compelling new art installation, Trees Make Happiness 2. This exhibit showcases works by Japanese student artists, providing insights into contemporary youth culture and highlighting the significance of trees in our lives. Open until March 2027.
Boston Children’s Museum wins Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston award for Best Kid-Friendly Museum.
Looking Back to Leap Forward: Celebrating the Legacy of President and CEO Carole Charnow.
Beyond the Chalkboard is an online resource for learning beyond school. Explore hundreds of science, math, art, and engineering activities using simple, low-cost materials you likely already have.
Build your own museum, test your memory through matching, create a fun Mad Lib, and more!
View our growing archive of play and learning activities that you can enjoy at home.
Come explore our over 100-year-old collection that includes items from all around the world.
Age: 4-5, 6-8 Category: STEAM, Play!
Dream up, design, and build things that make our world a better place in Dream it! Build it! Engage in hands-on making and collaborative problem solving to discover the power of architecture, design, engineering, construction, and teamwork. Dream big about the future of our cities and communities. Design creative solutions by experimenting with ideas, materials, light, and color. Build hands-on projects with real tools, real collaboration, and real joy.
Age: 4-5, 6-8 Category: Play!
How far can your imagination take you? It’s dinosaurs in space! And it’s just as fun, creative, and silly as you imagine. Enter a space dome and create a landscape for dinosaurs, design a new constellation, send an inter-galactic message, and dress up a dinosaur for a space flight. Start with the question “What if…?” and see where your imagination and creativity go next!
Age: 4-5, 6-8 Category: STEAM
The STEAM Lab is a space for hands-on science, technology, engineering, art, and math activities that are specifically designed to foster creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Program a robot, design your very own light-up bug, build a marble maze, or make an ornament with help from our laser cutter! The STEAM Lab is a great place to try out a tool or technology you haven’t seen before, learn something new, and make a fun project in the process!
Age: 0-3 Category: Play!
Designed specially for young children, PlaySpace is just for little ones ages birth to 3 years and their adults to play, discover, connect, and wonder! From cooking up a pretend snack and driving a toddler-sized jeep, to climbing hills and crossing a wobbly bridge, PlaySpace is where very young children learn about themselves and the world around them. Infants and crawlers have a special spot too—a shoes-off area for the very littlest learners and their adults to explore together!
Age: 0-3, 4-5, 6-8 Category: Play!
Visit the whimsical world of Mo Willems and his cast of lovable characters, including best friend duo Elephant and Piggie, faithful companion Knuffle Bunny, and The Pigeon, the wily city bird best known for his antics in Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Launch foam hot dogs at The Pigeon and play the plinko game to give the Duckling a cookie. Dress up Naked Mole Rat and send him down the runway for a one-of-a-kind fashion show. Make art that is inspired by Mo Willems, and so much more!
The Pigeon Comes to Boston! A Mo Willems Exhibit was co-organized by Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.
Age: 4-5 Category: STEAM
Explore the waterfall in Catfish Creek, and make your very own silly shadows in the Deep Dark Woods! In Peep’s World, children and families travel into the world of the characters from WGBH’s Emmy award-winning science program “Peep and the Big Wide World.” Observe, compare, and predict throughout this fantasy land.
Age: 4-5, 6-8 Category:Health and Wellness
In Kid Power, children discover that active bodies and healthy foods make them powerful people! Pedal fast to activate the Kid Power sign, shoot some hoops, climb up the walls, and hop and bounce on power pump seats. Making healthy choices is easier when families have fun doing it together.
Age: 4-5, 6-8 Category: STEAM
Investigate with all your senses! Examine natural objects, engage with hands-on science activities, and crawl under a turtle tank to get a belly-eye view of our resident turtles Frida and Georgia. In Investigate, children and adults can explore the natural world together and come up with questions to keep investigating back home.
Age: 4-5, 6-8 Category: STEAM
Wave, swirl, blow, pull, float, and even stretch—there is so much to discover about bubbles! One of Boston Children’s Museum’s most beloved and enduring exhibits, Bubbles gives children and adults a chance to experiment and investigate together by creating bubbles that are giant, tiny, and everything in between. With a variety of bubble-making tools to explore, this exhibit encourages children and adults to experiment side-by-side and share discoveries.
Age: 5-10, adults Category: Identity
This engaging exhibition space encourages families to connect with each other around questions of fairness in the world, and express themselves through guided identity exploration. You, Me, We addresses an urgent need in our society for self-reflection, in order to disrupt bias and build empathy for one another. In response to and in support of needs identified by parents and caregivers, You, Me, We offers adults thoughtful guidance and tools to more deeply engage with children in their lives as they begin to perceive, explore, and question topics such as identity, stereotyping, discrimination, and more.
For more information, click here.
Age: 6-8 Category: Art
Adjacent to the Japanese House, an authentic 1880s house from Kyoto, Japan, this gallery space explores contemporary stories of Japan, especially of the vibrant and multifaceted lives and expressions of youth. Using art and culture as vehicles, local and international artists, storytellers, and curators co-create a culturally responsive gallery space that invites visitors to build empathy. Shared narratives are authentic and complex, bringing more appreciation to the lived experiences of each individual. Children and their grownups are encouraged to experience imagination and belonging in the Japanese House Gallery. This small space has a large mission!
Age: 6-8 Category: Culture and Identity
Welcome to the Japanese House! Walk down the street, take off your shoes, and step into an authentic two-story silk merchant’s home from Kyoto, Japan. The Japanese House was transported piece by piece from Kyoto and reconstructed here in Boston by Japanese carpenters. Families can explore every corner of the fully-equipped home. Japanese family life, customs, ceremonies, art, architecture, and seasonal events are all highlighted in this fully functional 100-year-old house inside the Museum. This house was a gift to the City of Boston from the City of Kyoto on the 20th Anniversary of their sister city relationship in 1979. Come explore this rare and very special landmark.
