Boston Children’s Museum

Boston Children’s Museum offers interactive exhibits and educational programs for children and families, focusing on science, culture, arts, health, and the environment.

Planning your visit

Boston Children's Museum is the second-oldest children's museum in the world, founded in 1913, and it helped invent the form — the idea that a museum for children should be built around touching and doing rather than looking was worked out substantially here, under Michael Spock's directorship in the 1960s and 70s.

The exhibits reflect that lineage. The three-storey New Balance Climb is a vertical maze children ascend through the atrium. The Japanese House is a genuine two-storey silk merchant's house from Kyoto, dismantled and reassembled, where visitors remove shoes and sit on tatami. Construction zones, a bubble room, an art studio and a toddler area fill the rest.

The Hood Milk Bottle outside, a giant wooden bottle from 1934, serves as the landmark.

It sits on Fort Point Channel in the Seaport district.

Bookable options are entry tickets. Weekday mornings in term time are calmest. Current availability is listed below.