Jun 2

I mentioned in an earlier post that my family planned to take advantage of many of the free museum days available to us here in the Puget Sound this summer. Today was the first Thursday of June and since my oldest son is still in school I thought it would be a great opportunity to try out one of the Children’s Museums with my younger kids.  We chose the Children’s Museum in Tacoma for todays outing.

The Childrens Museum in Tacoma currently offers the following free days:

Market Play Days –  Free admission for families every Thursday in June, July, and August.

Free First Friday of every month offers free admission for families.

So, if you like what you read you can still catch a free play day at this museum tomorrow, 6/3!

For this Free Museum day, we spent $6.50.  The breakdown is $1.50 for parking and a $5 donation we made to the museum.

I did spend some additional money, but it was on purchases from the Thursday Street Market that was taking place in the area. $6.50 is what it actually cost myself , my 4 year old and my 2 year old to go the the Museum.

It has been awhile since I have been to Tacoma, and the drive once you get off I-5 is beautiful. You have the water on one side, brick buildings on the left and there are many museums right in the downtown area.   Parking will cost you, but its relatively easy to find on a Thursday (there were many parking spots available within a two to three block walk of the museum during mid day. Parking on the streets is $.75 an hour with a two hour max. There are parking lots if you want to stay longer then this. Two hours was the perfect amount of time for my family so parking cost me a total of $1.50.

The museum does not stand out, I had to ask where to find it, and then I was asked by someone else after I left where it was. Bring the address with you and you will be fine.  When you enter it is completely free, but they do ask you if you want to make a donation to help keep free play going. I find it hard to say no to an ask like that so I gave $5 for the family.  You could politely decline and the only thing you would need to pay for is parking.

The Children’s Museum in Tacoma is perfect for pre-school aged kids. It is not too big, but there are plenty of play stations.  We found just over an hour to be about the perfect amount of time to play.  I do not think there would be too much to do for older kids outside of the art area.

When you enter there is a small area with cubby holes to keep your stuff, stroller parking, and you can eat there if you pack your own food but the spot is small (I recommend eating outside if the weather permits).  Some of the areas my kids enjoyed included:

An area with blocks right after you enter the Children’s Museum -

Small Block Play Area

A grocery/market play space (this was my favorite area, very cute!) -

Marketplace Play Area

More Marketplace Fun

Blocks the size of the kids to build with and climb on -

Art Studio that including poster paints, water paints, clay, crafts, stamps and more -

Thursdays during the summer Tacoma has a street market that they shut down part of Broadway for (it happens to be the few blocks directly in front of the museum). There is a park area with grass and tables set up that you can enjoy lunch after the museum. Many vendors offer a variety of hot food options if you want to purchase something to eat, or you can do what we did and pack a picnic and enjoy the mid day music entertainment while you eat.

After eating our picnic we picked up a couple of  balloon animals from one of the vendors at the market (he worked on donations).  Another fun find for the kids was a small stand I stopped at to buy some vegetable starters for the garden. She let the kids plant their own seeds (and they got to pick the vegetable). My youngest planted corn and my 4 year old chose Kale, mom was so proud (love to use Kale for a take off recipe I have for the Sopa Tuscana soup from Olive Garden – email me if you want the recipe!).

All in all it was a great day for the price. If you are not in the immediate Tacoma area (I drove from Kent) then I recommend doing this trip on a day with decent weather. That way you can enjoy the museum and market all in the same day. That is what made it worth the drive for us (I even got fresh asparagus for dinner). The museum would have been just over an hours entertainment without the additional time we spent picnicking and perusing the market.

If you have anything to add from your experience with the Children’s Museum in Tacoma please feel free to add to the conversation in the comments section.

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