Review: The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh

This was my family’s first visit to The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh.  Locate on the North shore not very far at all from downtown Pittsburgh. Located close to Heinz field, PNC Park, and the Aviary just to name a few landmarks.

We happened to be going to The Childrens’ Museum of Pittsburgh the same day as a Steelers pre-season game.  I was a little nervous about that, but it ended up working out just fine.  The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh was not hard to find.  Our hotel had pre-printed step by step directions.

The Childrens’ Museum was pretty busy on Saturday.  The parking lot attendant was pleasant and helped us find a spot to park.  Even though it was busy we were able to drop off our tickets and get our wrist bands very quickly.  With so much to do we weren’t even sure where we wanted to start.  The first thing we noticed was the tall kind of maze that went up three floors as we learned.  Of course my 8 year old and 6 year old were all over that.  It’s called “The Limb Bender”  Here are some pics of the boys having a ball in “The Limb Bender”

In that area was also items from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.  A fish tank, a tv camera, The castle, displays of the characters in the land of Make Believe and more.  The boys kind of breezed through this part.  I think it was more interesting to my husband and I since we grew up with Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

We then moved onto a room called “The Attic”  this was a fun room with a giant Kaliedescope, A doll house, pictures that make it look like their eyes are following you, and steps that went up to a room that was on an angle called “the gravity room” and you could take  slide down.  We all took the slide, well except my hubby he stayed at the bottom to take pics.

Then from there was a hallway.  There was a few neat exhibits in this area.  They had a button panel set up.  There was a screen with picture of Pittsburgh skyline.  You could choose 1 or 3 Pittsburgh pics and create a computer animated fireworks display to music.  Once you finished your could watch your fireworks display you created.  This was a lot of fun.  From there we went to the “Garage and Workshop”  They had a Smart Car the kids could explore.  The most noticeable thing was the almost tree house-like tower that went up 2 floors.  There were steps to go up and a slide to come down if you wished.  And my OT side was happy because I also noticed an elevator for those not able to hoof it up there.

This is my eight year old and 6 year old at the top of the tower getting ready to come down the slide.  There was also a neat system where someone could stand on the bottom and put a toy parachute on a paddle.  The person on the top would….i believe…turn a crank and it would bring the parachute to the top and you could watch it drift to the bottom.  After the kids came down the slide,

We just had to try the ball maze over our head.  There was a cage on the floor where you could put a ball in the basket and use a pulley system to get it to the kind of wire maze above our heads.

The ball would follow this sort of wire maze around and end in a funnel over head that would drop the balls back down into the cage.  This got a little hectic.  For how busy it was there were kids that kept grabbing the balls from other kids and pulling the ropes 3 or 5 at a time.  It was fun though to watch the balls go around.  There was more to do int his area like the little workshop room with robot gadgets, the giant wooden robot kids could control with levers and inclines for car races.

We then went to the Curious George traveling exhibit.  It was cute. There was  a rocket ship that was a slide, Curious George’s apartment building with a pulley system, and a lot more.

One of the room’s I was most excited about seeing was “The Nursery” for my 1 year old.  His favorite thing seemed to be what I called “The lite brite wall”.  He was facinated by this.  He played with this for a while.  Even when we took him to other areas he always would come back to “The lite brite wall”

We let him try the texture trail.  There were wooden train tables set up, a ball incline where he could roll wooden balls down the incline and it would hit certain things to make sounds.  Another feature he seemed to like was what we called the “bubble seesaw”  Two small children could sit and use the seesaw.  As they moved it would create bubbles in the “bubble wall” I tried to capture this in a picture.

We then moved on to the older boys’ most anticipated room…”Waterplay“.  I was impressed with this room. They had rain coats and shoes like crocs to put on so they didn’t hopefully get drenched.  There was an area with slatted floors that had pipe coming up from the floor. The kids could connect pipes to this and make a pipe system for the water to flow through.  I enjoyed this most with the older boys because they were working together.

They had water way areas that the kids could put together sail boats with foam pieces and sale them on the water way.  They had a larger area then one that was more accessible for the toddlers. My one year old just enjoyed splashing the water.

They wanted to do the “Limb Bender” about 3 times.  We ate at the cafe in the Children’s Museum for lunch.  To my surprise it was really very reasonable.  We just got a large cheese pizza for the fam, and drink for each of us, and we got the baby some mac n’ cheese and it only came to about $24 bucks so no more than a family trip to McD’s as far as the food goes.

Because we allowed the children to linger on exhibits though we ran out of time.  We didn’t get to try “The Backyard” which is outdoors.  There were swings and a fort for them to climb in.  There is also “The Studio” where they could create pictures or “The Theatre”.  Oh well, maybe next time.

If you’re heading to Pittsburgh I would put this on your list of family friendly places to visit.  Reasonable ticket prices, friendly staff, reasonable prices at the cafe, and lots to keep your family entertained.

Check out the link to see more things to do at The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Find directions, here about special exhibits and more:   http://www.pittsburghkids.org/

***I received a family pass from The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh to help facilitate a review.  I did not receive any monetary compensation for this post.  I was under no obligation to give a positive review.  Any opinions expressed are my own***