The Children’s Museum of Phoenix is a hands-on museum, dedicated to their mission: ‘to engage the minds, muscles, and imaginations of children and the grown-ups who care about them.’
Their website states they have exhibits designed for all children, from birth to 10. Founded in 1998, as the Phoenix Family Museum, it has grown through overwhelming community support to become the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, in December of 2005. The Children’s museum operated as a Museum Without Walls, featuring 8 traveling exhibits, encouraging hands-on leaning.
In 2006, renovations began on the Monroe School Building, and in 2008, the Children’s Museum officially opened in its new home.
They have certainly come a long way. The building still feels very much like a school, with long hallways, and classrooms filled with exhibits.
Upon entry, you can purchase tickets, but tickets can also be purchased online. Admission for Non-Members is $11 for anyone 1-61, $10 for seniors (62+) and Free for children under the age of 1. If you do the math, it cost our family of four $44. We all know how the TT Family feels about charging children and adults the same amount, over $10. We are not fans. It should not cost our family of four over $40 to visit your establishment, unless you are about to blow our minds.
To put it another way- This museum charges the same for children and adults because it is designed to engage, educate, and entertain both children and adults. Sounds great. Got it. I can get behind that. What I can’t get behind- the fact that children are not allowed to enter without adults, and adults are not allowed to enter without children. I completely understand that policy, as well. 100%. But I don’t believe the two work so well together. They know that each kid is coming with at least one adult and each adult is coming with at least one kid. Charging the same for adults and kids just seems a bit much to us.
At this time, the museum does not participate in any reciprocal programs.
To quote TT Dad: ‘Standard Children’s Museum.’
Don’t get me wrong. There were certainly positives to be found. The parking lot, for example, has a number of parking spots shaded by solar panels. Wonderful idea, in theory. The lot is pretty small, however, and only a handful of them are shaded. In the hot Phoenix sun, why not shade them all?
Before our trip, we checked out the website, and we were excited. According to the website, most exhibits featured a ‘Baby Zone’, which would be a safe place for infants and toddlers to explore the exhibit, without getting in the way, or the middle of, the older kids in the exhibit. What a terrific idea!
Once inside, there was a large open area filled with large foam blocks for building. Fantastic in theory. In practice, it was a giant foam block missile zone. They were flying. I’m not sure if parents weren’t watching their kids, or if there were too many kids in the area, causing a mob mentality, but it felt a little dangerous to have our littles around, even in the dedicated ‘Baby Zone’. We quickly moved on to the next exhibit.
Heading upstairs, we were looking for the ‘Place for Threes and Younger.’ This was the ‘safe place’ we were looking for. The Literature told us it would be filled with age appropriate toys and climbing structures- and it was. We spent most of our time in this room. The difficulty, however, is that the difference in age, development, and size, between infants and almost four year olds is quite large.
There were definitely a few kids in there that almost trampled our littles, or knocked them over- Not because they were misbehaving, but simply because they were much larger than our 15 month, still not totally steady on their feet, olds.
We did our best to shield them from the kids who were flying through the play area, and in general, they had a great time. There were puzzles, play houses, tunnels, a climbing structure, and more. We probably could have spent the entire day here.
Instead, we ventured out into the rest of the museum. We found one additional exhibit which seemed to be safe for our kids, but it was located in the hallway, and there were a number of kids trying to use it at once, so we didn’t stay long. It was nearing snack, so we found our way to the room dedicated to eating. SpoonZ Café is located on the 2nd floor, and offers a place to sit and eat food you brought with you, but you can also purchase food there, as well, including pizzas, salads, sandwiches, and wraps.
After finishing our snack, we took the scenic route to the exit. We saw a few other exhibits from afar, but there were plenty we never actually got to see.
In our opinion, this museum would be very fun for older children. It tries hard to be appropriate for the younger set, but just doesn’t execute. It’s a tough thing to pull of. The Chlidren’s Museum of Phoenix is full of wonderful exhibits, but we weren’t able to explore the vast majority of them, with our toddlers.