But why wait for Hollywood to spark your kids' interest in the unexpected treasures each museum holds? New England's magical repositories of artifacts, art, architecture—even armor and athletic gear—stimulate young imaginations year-round.
There's an especially good reason to visit the Museum of Science, Boston by May 25, 2009: After that Monday, the army of frogs will vanish from view. The special Frogs: A Chorus of Colors exhibition, included with admission, immerses children in the diversity of these abundant amphibians. Among the more than 80 live frogs and tadpoles from around the globe on display, visitors will encounter giant African Bullfrogs, the soaring Chinese Gliding Frog and the aquatic Fire-bellied Toad. The Museum of Science is known for its more than 700 interactive exhibits, and this limited-run creature feature provides additional opportunities for hands-on learning, from listening to recorded frog calls to performing a virtual frog dissection.
Animals need not be exotic to enchant the littlest museum-goers, who enjoy fishing for lobsters, milking a cow and observing live bees at the Children's Museum of Maine in downtown Portland. Filled with playful props and learning activities that appeal to children from as young as six months through early elementary age, it's one place where acting out is not only allowed—it's encouraged! Hours fly by as kids collect eggs at the farm, fix cars in the repair shop, scale the rock wall, explore the treehouse and lighthouse and even stage their own productions in the dress-up theatre.
The all-new Children's Museum of New Hampshire, which opened in Dover last July in a space three times as large as its original home in Portsmouth, makes an excellent destination if your offspring range widely in age. While the tiniest visitors explore Primary Place's bright and exciting learning landscape, preschoolers can Step Into a Story; budding aerospace engineers can test their inventions at the Build It, Fly It exhibit; and tweenage video game junkies can don electrode-studded headbands to compete at Mindball... using only their brainwaves.
Adventure awaits at three world-class museums a bit off the beaten path. At the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts—the Western Hemisphere's only museum solely devoted to arms and armor—knights at the museum take on a new meaning: There are more than 70 suits of armor on display. An audio tour designed for ages 6 to 12 is available for rent, and this fortress-like museum's busy schedule of weekend events includes historical combat demonstrations and opportunities to try on medieval garb. In southeastern Connecticut at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, an escalator transports visitors back 11,000 years to the end of the last Ice Age, when the first humans inhabited New England. The story of the region's native peoples is vividly portrayed through films, artifacts, handcrafts, interactive multimedia and an audio tour through the remarkably lifelike Native American village. In nearby Groton at the Submarine Force Museum, kids of all ages enjoy peering through periscopes, operating a submarine's controls and climbing down into the cramped quarters of the USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine.
Little sports fans at home? Shoot on over to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, which is not just a shrine to the New England-born sport and a storehouse of basketball memorabilia but a place where kids can play a virtual game of one-one-one with NBA greats, demonstrate their sportscasting skills and practice their shots.
Or, round up your brood and head to Old Sturbridge Village, the Northeast's largest outdoor living history museum. Located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, this 200-acre complex is home to 40 antique buildings, a farm, costumed craftspeople and a cozy tavern, where you can enjoy a bite.
The cost of an entire day at each of these attractions is surprisingly affordable: comparable in most cases to the cost of a movie ticket. And at one—Connecticut's Submarine Force Museum—admission is absolutely free. Best of all, after an active and engaging day, your finest treasures definitely won't stir after dark.
