Day Trip to the Greensboro Children’s Museum

By Guest Blogger Ilyasah N Shabazz

The Greensboro Children’s Museum is not your average museum. Designed to inspire hands-on learning through play, GCM offers a fun, energetic and safe environment for children of all ages. The 37,000 square foot facility, located at 220 N Church St. in downtown Greensboro, includes more than 20 interactive exhibits that stimulate children’s imaginations and provide educational play experiences. If you’re looking for a way to spend your next day off with the family, look no further!

Children (and parents too!) can climb aboard a real Volvo truck, pretend to drive a real police car, operate a pizza restaurant, take the stage in costume to perform a play and much more.

A GCM favorite is the Health Center, which features a Newborn Nursery, Pediatric Pals Doctor’s office and a Dental Den.

For toddlers 2 and younger, Tot Spot is the perfect play environment. This gated exhibit is a safe area filled with padded blocks, a variety of ride-on toys, brightly colored balls, toys to grab and manipulate, mats for rolling around on and a cool sensory tunnel to crawl through.

Children of all ages, especially 10 and older, can climb to greater heights on 30-foot-tall Neptune XXL Climbers connected by a 25-foot suspended net tunnel. The Outdoor Play Plaza taps into a child’s creative level of problem solving, teaching children how to go from point A to point B with no specified path.

The Edible Schoolyard is a half-acre learning garden where children learn about the relationship between food, nature and life. Learners can follow along a path reading pages to a story or head straight to our pollinator garden to learn more about the pollination process before visiting the chickens in the coup.

Before you head to the Museum, be sure to check their calendar of events. Throughout the day, you may be able to enjoy a free pop-up program with admission. Favorites include Get Moving! where children participate in physically active fun and Science Lab, where learners conduct hands-on experiments and fun activities.

Pack your lunch and enjoy time with your family out on Nannie’s Patio, or stop by the Snack Shack for a quick item from the vending machine.

GCM is open six days a week to the public, reserving Mondays for members only. The cost of admission is $10 for children, ages 12 months and older, and for adults. Admission is half-off every Friday evening from 5 to 8 pm. and every Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. As a Blue Star Museum, active duty military and their families can visit GCM for free anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Visit mbcmuseum.com to plan your next day trip to the Greensboro Children’s Museum.