The Discovery Museums

The museum seems a little run down. I’ve gone there for over 20 years and the bubble maker needed liquid and front of water play felt slimy

When going to a Museum, It’s all about setting up the right expectations before the visit. You don’t go into a big city museum expecting a cozy and intimate experience, just like you don’t go into a small museum expecting it to have all of the same facilities and blockbuster exhibits of a large museum. Each of these institutions have their own space and budgets to work with, and are great learning environments if you know what to expect.
That being said, The Discovery Museums in Acton are a solid local small museum that offer a surprisingly lot of fun exhibits in a tight space. If you have children under 10, you’ve just discovered a cheap, educational, and entertaining jackpot of activities. The museums are divided into two buildings: The Children’s Discovery Museum and The Science Discovery Museum. Both are located on a 4.5 acre campus with smaller outdoor play spaces along the building. They don’t have a café, so if you’re planning on spending the day with your little ones, make sure you bring a bag lunch and snacks, and try to come on a good weather day when you can enjoy a picnic at one of their outdoor tables. There is also a well thought-​out calendar of events, and if you plan accordingly, you can participate in some fun extra programs that are not available daily.
If you have children under 4, definitely check out The Children’s Discovery Museum first. It’s set up in an old Victorian home, and each of the rooms are set-​up thematically with colorful murals, lots of toys, and experiment stations. You can board a train, set-​up a chain reaction ball ramp, go on a safari, prepare food in a diner, and explore a water table, etc. If you have children between 5 and 10, check out The Science Discovery Museum first. It’s the larger and newer building with 3 floors of science exhibits where you can mix sounds in a recording studio, build a model green house, explore patterns, use scientific instruments, and engineer, etc. While some of the exhibits look like they could use a little updating, they still offer some solid educational fun.
The Discovery Museums are also in the middle of a capital campaign with the hope of combining their two Museums into one building, while creating new exhibits indoors and out. It will be exciting to see how they grow and change in the next couple of years as they make their institution a better resource for their general audience and local community.

We headed over here right after a visit to the Children’s Discovery Museum and though it was equally as crowded, the little man still had a great time. He loved the sand pendulum, climbed the ladder upstairs to peer out into the sky, and was sad that the line was so long at the workshop. (Okay. So I bribed him to stop waiting — but really, parents need to limit their kids. We waited about 30 minutes and the same kids were still there. When you are four, that’s a really long time!!)
Overall, still a lot of fun and an enjoyable experience.

located right next door from the little kids museum, this one steps it up a notch.
more science, more interactive, more personal injury. me, not him, hes ok and loved every minute, me, i got bludgeoned by a two year old.
kinda like the boston one (cambridge i guess) but closer to these parts and a hair cheaper (way cheaper if you use mta plan like moi). i will say the one in boston does have more to offer, but thats the way the sand pendulum rotates.