Themed Visits to the Children’s Museum

Complimentary membership to Omaha Children’s Museum was received as compensation for this Omaha Children’s Museum post.

When your kids find a place they absolutely love it’s hard to not visit frequently. When we visit someplace frequently I like to start creating themed visits to help give the kids a new perspective on a place they’ve been to time and time again.

The Omaha Children’s Museum is one of those places that offers a wide variety of activities the kids love. When I pair my own creativity with the imaginative, educational exhibits and events they offer, it means it can be like a new place almost every time we visit.

This technique can be used at just about any place you can think of, museums, zoos, playgrounds, trails and more.

To walk you through some ideas I’ll share our Rainbow Theme at the Omaha Children’s Museum with you. 

Themed Visits for the Children’s Museum

1. What does the location have to offer. Be creative in what you notice. For example, I noticed there was a lot we could do with rainbows and color in an educational way at the Omaha Children’s Museum. Our local museum has exhibits related to water, art, and food, in addition to the many STEM activities. There is also a little cafe where we can either bring our own snacks or buy something. Also, pay attention to the locations website and calendar. Sign up for their newsletter so you always know the special events that are coming up. You never know when something will spark a theme idea. I used all of this information to design our Rainbow themed visit. 
2. Bring a themed snack. For the most part you should be able to come up with just about anything that fits a theme. We opted for Rainbow Kabobs. If you can’t bring food in, just pack along a snack for after the visit. It’s a great time to discuss the theme and everything you did together.
3. Arts and Crafts are a plus! We’re lucky that our children’s museum offers all kinds of creative outlets for the kids. Everything from painting, to creating their own craft projects, face painting and more. If the location you are visiting doesn’t have an arts/crafts center just bring along paper, pencils or crayons. Let the kids draw a picture related to the theme.
4. Explore the location. Send the kids on a scavenger hunt, or tell them they are explorers and need to report back to you everything they find that is related to the theme. My kids are always amazed at how much detail they notice when they’re looking for it.
5. Relate your theme to the five senses. This sort of goes with the idea to explore. It also encourages the kids to get creative and problem solve. I mean, how can you hear a rainbow? Solved that one, but what about tasting a rainbow? This is one challenge they mastered over and over again.
6. Read themed books. We didn’t do this at the Children’s Museum this visit, but when we came home I read the girls a book from the Rainbow Fairies book series. Since then we’ve also read books about how rainbows are formed and they talked about how the light works with water to create the rainbow. This was something they experimented with at the Children’s Museum, so we were able to easily relate it to our visit. There is also a room we could go in to find a little comfy quiet place to enjoy our books for a quick break at our location.

How do you enjoy your visits out with the kids. Do you just let them do their own thing, or do you help them come up with different activities to freshen up the experience?