Minnesota Children's Museum


The Minnesota Children's Museum is a non-profit community organization located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, US. The Museum mission statement is "providing children with a fun, hands-on and stimulating environment to explore and discover". The Museum, in operation since 1981, embraces these core concepts: Early learning is the foundation for lifelong learning. Families are our children's first teachers. All children deserve a time and place to be children. Diverse perspectives enrich children's lives. Play is learning.

History

On December 12, 1981, the first children entered the original Children's Museum, known as "Minnesota's AwareHouse", in downtown Minneapolis. Attendance grew to 80,000, and the museum quickly outgrew the original space in downtown Minneapolis. In 1985, the Children's Museum moved to an old blacksmith's shop in Bandana Square, transforming dirt walls into of galleries. By the early 1990s, the museum's visitors and exhibits again outgrew the space in Bandana Square. Plans to build an even bigger museum began. The doors to the Minnesota Children's Museum in downtown Saint Paul opened with of gallery and program space in September 1995. Three of the most popular exhibits moved from Bandana Square to the Minnesota Children's Museum in downtown St. Paul: Habitot®; the Crane, and the Maze. Today, more than 6 million children and their families have visited the Museum. In September 2012, The Museum planned a $26 million expansion and began renovations in late 2016.
On December 5, 2016, the Children's Museum closed until its $30 million renovation was expected to be completed in mid-April 2017. It would reveal a different layout and 10 new exhibits, along with a cafe and coffee bar, more bathrooms and elevators. On June 7, 2017, the Museum reopened to the public.

Galleries