The Children’s Museum of Alamance County is the go to place for anyone with elementary aged children in and around Alamance County.
The Children’s Museum of Alamance County will encourage children to exercise their curiosity, develop their imagination and discover their world through exploration.
The hours are Tuesday-Thursday: 10am – 4pm, Friday: 10 am – 8 pm, Saturday: 10am – 5pm & Sunday: 1 – 5pm. You can get a daytime pass or you can get a membership – since the kids don’t live here we don’t have a membership, but if they did – we would be there like every day.
When the kids come to visit and they find out we’re taking a day trip, they are so happy and excited. They would spend the whole day there if they could.
I’m the type of parent who gets in there with my children and actually help and have fun with them. I’m not one to sit around, like I’ve seen with some people there.
There’s are plenty of activities to do there, there’s something for everyone. There are nine exhibits Building Zone, Health Center, Science Adventure, Luckey Climber, Artist’s Workshop, Then & Now, Jane’s Cafe, Wobble & Roll,My Own Backyard.
Building Zone is an unlimited opportunities to build fine and gross motor skills and social skills as well as engage in teamwork and life-size role play. Where you can build castles, cars, robots, towers & more. I think this area is where we have the most fun. We have spent most of our time in this area building and having a blast together.
Jane’s Cafe offers a great atmosphere for adults and children to play together. Children take food orders and serve their grown-ups. Imagination, self -confidence and social skills are fostered. My kids have already loved playing with kitchen food. They love helping me with real food, watching them do this was so awesome. They all did their own thing. Their imagination blew my mind with the food they were bringing me as they made me food.
The Health Center introduces children to medical and biological fields through a health science lab, dentist’s and doctor’s offices, and newborn nursery. Who doesn’t love playing with babies? Out of all of the areas, the babies is where they head. Jacob walking around with the baby and feeding them was the cutest thing possible.
The Artist’s Workshop is a child-sized musical instruments lead to impromptu concerts and parades. Paint directly onto safety glass walls of the Paint Room making designs and experimenting with color, allowing everyone outside the walls to enjoy the paintings. Watching the walls being washed by the water hose suspended from the high ceiling is fun, too! Guided art activities, puppet theater, costumes and stage encourage children to appreciate their own individuality and appreciate the uniqueness of others. Who doesn’t love being able to paint on the wall? This area also often has art crafts and Jacob and I normally do those each time we go.
Wobble & Roll is protected from the high energy and activity of the rest of the museum, Wobble and Roll addresses the unique learning needs of infants, toddlers and their caregivers. Safe materials and surfaces encourage children to engage in discovery activities… to climb, roll, pull up to stand, sit, stack to name a few. I believe kids have to be 3 and under to go in there. Jacob plays in here usually.
Luckey Climber is a steel pipes and cables suspend platforms of bent plywood. Luckey Climber is a three dimensional sculpture designed for children. A visually elegant work of art and also part jungle gym. This is more for the older kids as kids Jacob’s age is really too small.
My Own Backyard offers unstructured open-ended play experiences. This beautiful natural environment adjacent to the museum includes a river for “fishing”, secret underground passage and hill for climbing, sandbox for fossil digging, log stumps for sitting and stepping, grasses, shade structures, native plants and flowers. Now when we went the last time, it was open but it still wasn’t warm enough to do all the activities out there, it’s more for summer time honestly. They had this hobbit looking house where this pipe ran through and they could crawl through it, they had a blast.
Science Adventure is where you can shoot into outer space and gaze at the constellations in our 13-foot rocket ship. Devoted to Kid-powered science, this area is made up of interactive wall installations, wacky mirrors and shelves of puzzles and books. The kids like to take bouncy balls and throw them within the rocket ship, it’s the little things that entertain them.
In Then & Now you can learn about where you live by exploring our past and present. Our own little town has a post office, train station, textile mill, farm and farm house, produce market and fire truck. Deliver mail to various mailboxes of exhibits in the museum, sell train tickets, weave a pattern and run a household. Harvest fresh vegetables and sell them at the market. Be a firefighter and drive the life-size antique firetruck! The kids always take a picture on the firetruck and they always play with the train tracks. Who am I kidding, I always fix the track when I am there. I love these tracks, we always wanted one as a kid and never got it.
Overall every time we go there – we always have a blast. They always make friends and are always left wanting to go back. There’s also a little gift shop by the front door. You can have birthday parties there as well, that’s always a nice plus. None the less, If you are in or around Graham, NC at any time. You should stop by the children’s museum. Your kids will thank you afterwards.