Family Vacations and Field Trips: The Children's Museum of Richmond, VA

Our family loves to travel, but with every age from preschool to pre-college sometimes it is difficult to find attractions that were "attractive" to every age and every family member. Since we are members of the nationally acclaimed Children's Museum of Houston, we often search for other children's museums located near our travels and have visited quite a few from San Diego to Indianapolis. During our travels to Williamsburg, Virginia we decided to take a day trip to the Children's Museum of Richmond, with Featured Contributor Angela La Fon as our tour guide.

The Children's Museum of Richmond is currently celebrating its 30^th year of providing "Learning through Play" experiences. It offers not only the museum to its guest but also field trips, special classes for many age groups, birthday party and group events.

The Children's Museum Exhibits

"Exhibit" is a word that does not really do justice to the interactive experiences available at this children's museum. The environment, mission and goal of the CMOR are that:

"Play is not a waste of time for children and is a natural and spontaneous way for children to learn about the world around them. CMoR's exhibits help children recognize and build on what is familiar and allow them to make new connections between their own experiences, the people and places that surround them, and the world beyond their community. CMoR's exhibits are designed to foster creative, unstructured play, discovery and problem solving.

The exhibits are hands-on and weave learning concepts from the Virginia's Standards of Learning, NAEYC Standards and Virginia's Foundation Blocks for Early Learning. They are designed with specific developmental ages in mind from birth to eight years old."

Let's make some "stops" at our favorite exhibits:

Sun Tubes

Explore the world of solar energy by inserting brightly colored scarves into the tubes and watch them travel through the tubular maze, and find out how solar energy is used to power this exhibit through photovoltaic panels on the large flat panel TV screen.

The Town Square

In the town square the car repair show was a big hit with my children, and a very large field trip class. My other daughter enjoyed playing the banker in the bank, the teacher in the classroom while the more theatrically inclined child explored the world of shadows and became a television star and weather person.

The Art Studio

This is a visit to a real art studio and appropriate for all ages, with every art supply a child can imagine, and many of them offering a "green" alternative with scraps of this and that, buttons, and other items recycled for children and adults to use to create everything from a fairy tale castle with toilet paper tubes or simply painting and drawing.

The Playhouse

For that aspiring singer, actor and director the Playhouse can provide a great deal of fun with dress up clothing, a stage, and seating for the audience, a music system and even a small puppet theater. One daughter was "directing" the action while the other one was "tripping the light fantastic" showing off her flair for drama.

The Cave, Treehouse and Dino Zone

Explore science and nature in these areas. Become paleontologist with your children as you explore dinosaurs up, down and all around, literally sliding down a dinosaurs back (or in our case sliding down it several times). Brushes and shovels are available to help children explore and discover their own dinosaur bones.

In the cave (CMoR's newest exhibit) explore stalactites and stalagmites just like those that form in real caves.

In the "living treehouse" children and adults can climb to the top of the "tree" to get the best view in town of the museum as well as work off some energy navigating the tree branches.

Outdoor play

In the outdoor play area the ability to make beautiful music and dance wildly following the progression of lighted tiles were a big hit with my children. There are also sand, water and riding toys for play and comfortable benches for parents to rest on. After all, playing is hard work!

Admission to the Children's Museum of Richmond is very reasonable at $8.00 for adults (ages 1-59); $7.00 for seniors and children under 1 are free. Individual and Family memberships are available. Group pricing may be available, depending on the size of your group. This museum if open most major school holidays and seven days a week Memorial Day thru Labor Day 9:30 am-5:30 pm. Labor Day though Memorial Day they are open Tuesdays thru Sunday 9:30 am - 5 pm.

I admit, I normally avoid the "shopping" at museums due to the tantrums that may erupt like a volcano after so many hours of free and creative play, but there is no avoiding this one as it is wide open as you enter and exit the museum's main areas. But that's ok, it offers learning and creative play toys, puzzles, books and activities that can make most children happy and parents too as prices started at $1.00 for stickers, magnifying glasses and many other fun take home "toys".

The Children's Museum of Richmond is a short drive from Colonial Williamsburg and well worth the trip because our children could learn and play throughout the day, and slept all the way home. One of the best things about this children's museum is that it is not just exhibits to admire but exploration for the whole family.

Sources:

Personal experience

The Children's Museum of Richmond