The Portland Children’s Museum is a Great Place to Visit with Children

June 19, 2010

Alex just turned nine months old and I wanted to do something special to celebrate. I had been meaning to take him to the Portland Children’s Museum for some time now, as I had heard lots of good things about the museum from my cousin who has a 2 year old. This seemed like a good time to finally go.

The Portland Children’s Museum is located in Washington Park across from the Oregon Zoo at 4015 SW Canyon Road. The museum costs $8 for everyone age 1 and over and parking is $2. Alex was free since he is under one, and I had a coupon from the Entertainment coupon book for buy one get one free, so we got in cheap this time. Memberships are available for those who plan on visiting the museum frequently.

Our first stop was the Baby Garden. This area is specifically set up for the museum’s youngest visitors and includes a waterbed for kids to lay on, a book reading corner, an aquarium with fish, toys, a slide and more. Alex is crawling pretty well now and enjoyed crawling around and playing with the toys. We played quite a while in the room before proceeding to visit the rest of the museum.

This weekend the Museum’s new exhibit, the Pet Hospital Opened. Lots of kids were enjoying playing in the new exhibit which allows them to dress up and pretend to be a vet. A real vet was giving a presentation (which we did not attend) in the theater.

We went and played with blocks in the bridge building area, then wandered about the museum to take a look at the rest of the exhibits. Most of the exhibits are better suited for older kids (at nine months there is only so much a kid can do), but the museum makes an effort to have things for the younger kids to do.

In the Clay Building studio they had a special area for babies and toddlers, so we sat down and played with clay. Alex particularly liked banging the little mallet. He’s no great artist yet, but maybe next time he will create a masterpiece.

We wandered on through the museum and stumbled upon story time. The stories were focused on pets in honor of the new exhibit. Alex loved it and smiled and laughed. When his attention started to wane, I showed him the hollow log which he got a real kick out of. He climbed back and forth between me and his dad.

The Museum has a grocery store and café with lots of fake fun food that was very popular with the kids. I remember when I was little I use to love the fake food. The only problem this time around was that since it was close to lunch time, it made me hungry. There is a Pizza Schmizza at the museum, but we chose to head home and eat lunch. We’ll be back.

View photos from our visit on the Inflatable Kingdom Facebook Page.

Looking for more fun activities for kids?

Inflatable Kingdom’s Open Play is lots of fun for children.

The sessions are recommended for toddlers through preteens. Age specific Open Play is also sometimes offered or book a private play session.

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