5 Exhibits You Have to Explore with Your Kids
This summer, one road trip to St. Louis with the kids was so fun that I decided to pack all of us back in the car for a one-day, in-and-out whirlwind trip to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
Honestly, getting back in the car with the kids for 3.5 hours to Indy and 3.5 hours back all in the same day — just one week after the St. Louis vacation –was not exactly what I wanted to do … and even less what #DoneWithFun Daddy wanted to do.
But we fit it in before the end of July in order to check out the PAW Patrol special exhibit that closed July 28. Sawyer is PAW Patrol obsessed, and I was having some mom guilt that we never do anything just for Sawyer — we drag him along to all the things Easton will love.
One long exhausting day later, all of Sawyer’s PAW Patrol dreams came true and seeing his mind blown at the exhibit made the endless 7 hours in the car worth it.
This is literally the only non-blurry pic on my camera roll because that’s how much he was pin-balling around Adventure Bay.
So while the PAW Patrol exhibit has since closed, we had an amazing day exploring the museum from top to bottom. If you’re anywhere close to Indianapolis, I couldn’t recommend this particular Family Field Trip more highly: the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has done the best job I’ve ever seen of creating a museum that appeals equally to kids and adults.
My only bit of advice: If you’re in the Chicagoland area, probably don’t try to do the drive in and out in one day. Find an inexpensive hotel and stay the night before or the night after to spread out your driving and give your family more time to explore all this museum has to offer.
Where:
Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
3000 North Meridian Street
Indianapolis, IN 46208-4716
Get directions
Plan your visit: https://www.childrensmuseum.org/
Don’t miss these five exhibits at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis — our family’s favorites:
Dinosphere
The visuals in this exhibit were stunning, elevating the usual dinosaur bones to something fascinating and a little eerie all at the same time. Interactivities at kid-level at every turn let the boys smell dinosaur food (yuck), dress up in dinosaur costumes, and even excavate dinosaur bones in a Dino Dig pit.
Treasures of the Earth
This sprawling exhibit sponsored by National Geographic explores famous ancient mysteries from history from an archaeological perspective. Recreations of the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Seti I, the burial site of China’s Terra Cotta Warriors, and the Caribbean shipwreck of Captain Kidd all offer a variety of activities and ways to explore and play.
One of my favorite parts of the exhibit focused on the Terra Cotta Warriors from China. Life-size statues were made into three-dimensional puzzles where the kids could take the pieces apart and then attempt to recreate the sculptures exactly as a real archaeologist could do. Sawyer’s puzzle skills and spatial reasoning put my own skills (or lack of) to shame.
Beyond Spaceship Earth
This immersive exhibits lets you explore an International Space Station and discover exactly what life in space is like for astronauts, including trying on space gear and trying your hand at astronauts’ tasks in zero gravity. The history of space exploration is covered in a succinct, kid-friendly format that caters to short attention spans (although my kids were getting tired and hungry by this point, so their attentions spans were admittedly shorter than most.)
Here, the boys are fighting over the astronaut’s seat at the control station.
Treasures of Ancient Greece
The only one of our favorite exhibits that’s temporary, Treasures of Ancient Greece is at the Children’s Museum through January 2020. Unlike the previous three exhibits, this one does require the purchase of an additional ticket (a $7 upcharge to admission) but I think it’s wholeheartedly worth it. Before we made the decision to explore the exhibit, I was on the fence, unsure if it would be too art/artifact-heavy for my boys, therefore “boring” and a waste of our money and time.
It was anything but. Although the exhibit does feature A LOT of classic museum cases with artwork and artifacts, it also has lots of fun activities for kids, including dressing up in Greek battle gear, trying your hand at running in the Olympics with an on-screen simulator, creating your own mosaic art, building a Greek temple with foam blocks, and decorating a Grecian urn with wipe-away markers.
This was the most grown-up of the exhibits we visited, and my parents, who came with us to the museum, were able to spend time in front of the classical art just as they would at The Field Museum or Art Institute. But the boys were equally entranced with all of the interactions designed for them and came away with a renewed interest in Greek mythology, so the exhibit designers knew exactly what they were doing. I’m glad we decided not to skip this, and it was the right exhibit to end our visit with.
Fireworks of Glass
At the center of the Children’s Museum is a 43-foot tower of blown glass by renowned artist Dale Chihuly. The Fireworks of Glass exhibit, while not my boys’ favorite, was definitely mine. I could have peered at the intricacies of the tower for hours. The tower rises above a glass ceiling, so you can sit on a revolving couch and stare up, getting lost in the explosion of color. It feels like you’re inside of a kaleidoscope.
You can also try to make your own Chihuly-inspired masterpiece with plastic pieces and try blowing glass virtually on computers. This entertained the boys for about 3 minutes before they were ready to move on, but I returned to the exhibit once before we left, just to look up one more time and take it all in.
Then, minds officially blown and museum shutting down in minutes, we hustled the boys through an expansive gift shop with minimal tears and headed for home.
A few more tips for success:
- Explore the museum one floor at a time. Avoid extra walking by doing all the exhibits on the First Floor first, then going upstairs, and upstairs again. We skipped the Third Floor entirely because of our limited time.
- Allow a full day to explore if you want to fit everything in. We had exactly 4 hours at the museum, and while I don’t feel like we missed anything critical, we didn’t see every single exhibit. A 6- or 8-hour day would be necessary to get in every last thing, including the outdoor World of Sport and related exhibits.
- Buy your tickets online in advance, as early as possible. You save substantial money on admission prices if you buy two weeks early. But even if you don’t want to commit that far out, buy online a couple of days before. You’ll still save money.
- Take time to walk around outside and check out the dinosaurs crashing through the building. The landscaping and building design is unique in itself.
- If you need a fun family-friendly stop to stretch your legs on the drive to or from, Fair Oaks Farm is about 90 minutes outside of Indianapolis and has clean bathrooms, yummy cheesy cafe food, decadent ice cream, and farm animals to peek at. It can be a quick stop or a longer one, but it helps break up the long drive for kids.
Is your family a bunch of museum nerds like we are? Which one is your favorite? Tell me in the comments below or on social media with #NeverDoneWithFun. For more ideas and inspiration, keep following our family’s adventures on Instagram and our projects on Pinterest!
Looking for more local Chicagoland adventures? Visit the Garfield Park Conservatory, hunt for trolls at the Morton Arboretum, explore the Chicago Children’s Museum at Navy Pier, and more with the #NeverDoneWithFun Family Field Trip series!
