Imagination runs wild for kids at both the Children’s Museum of Stockton as well as the Modesto Children’s Museum.
Stockton is old school given it opened in the 1990s.
Modesto is a bit more interactive given it opened in 2023.
Children’s Museum of Stockton
The 22,000-square-foot low-tech, interactive museum where youngsters learn by playing can make them forget about their Xbox, PlayStation, Wii and iPad — at least for a while.
The entrance to the museum at 402 W. Weber St., near the downtown waterfront just off Highway 4, has been guarded since 1994 by a pair of colorfully clad and cheerful 40-foot-tall toy soldier-styled band members inspired by the Nutcracker ballet.
What awaits inside was born of a tragedy — the 1989 Cleveland School mass shooting that happened not very far away.
Five children were killed and 32 others were wounded while they were playing at recess by a shooter armed with an automatic weapon. Janet Geng was a teacher that was among the 32 wounded.
A visit to a similar museum in Washington, D.C. after the shooting inspired her to successfully push for establishment of the Children’s Museum of Stockton as a safe place where children can learn and play away from violence.
The result is a paradise of hands-on learning not just for young kids but also for adults accompanying them.
The exhibits play to childhood curiosity.
There’s a supermarket complete with toy food and boxed goods where you can place your purchases in a basket and ring them up. Sorry, but there are no bar scanners.
A post office complete with old-fashioned windows and mail postal boxes competes with a real Caterpillar tractor you can climb on for kids’ attention.
Kids can also get behind the wheel of a fire engine or climb on top where the hoses go.
They can explore the inside of an ambulance, drive a bus, straddle a police motorcycle or steer a Stockton Police car and turn on the emergency lights.
They can see themselves on TV as News10 anchors.
They can visit a doctors’ office and look up close at X-rays and other tools of the medical trade or they can play veterinarian and check on the heath of stuffed dogs.
They can be downright silly trying on shoes in a shoe store from various work boots and ballet slippers to size 16 basketball shoes.
One exhibit takes them into the human eye with mirrors and flipped real-time images to give them an idea of how they see. Youngsters can learn about recycling, climb up into a helicopter or walk through the innards of a giant fish. There are stations that allow them to see how magnets work, how water flows, and experience what it is like to be piloting a boat.
They can be puppeteers and create their own show, grab a book to read, or have their face painted. There is even a large arts and crafts room where they turn junk into priceless creations.
In short, the Children’s Museum of Stockton is the ultimate “know-know” place for kids where everything is meant to be touched.
The museum is within walking distance of the Stockton Waterfront promenade as well as Weber Point with its massive and whimsical interactive children’s play water feature.
General admission is $10 per ticket for adults and children ages one and over.
Those under one are admitted free.
Tickets are available at the door.
The Museum is open Wednesdays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., as well as Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
For more information go to childrensmuseumstockton.org
Modesto Children’s Museum
The Modesto Children’s Museum, colloquially referred to as MoChiMu, has the motto of “Be Curious, Be Creative, Be You.”
It certainly has plenty of interactive attractions and exhibits to open up a child’s curiosity and creativity.
At 12,000 square feet, it is smaller than Stockton’s kids museum but it packs a lot of punch in the space it has.
The museum features 10 permanent, interactive exhibits.
The Color Story Train greets visitors on the first floor. Powered by imagination, children select a color on a bubble-powered engine, follow the matching story-line through the train to read visual stories as they overlap and connect. They can also mix colors on collaborative color wheels and paint with light on a digital board, play with reflection in a merge mirror and leave their imprint on a touch-based, tactile wall.
The first floor is also the base of the Adventure Climber, a two-story tower of attractions for children to climb on, swing over, crawl through and slide down.
The Light Lab on the first floor is a prismatic playground where children can explore the properties of light, color, and shadow. In this darkened space, reflective walls create the illusion of an infinity mirror. There is a digital kaleidoscope that fills the ground and a wall of prisms refracts white light into a stunning spectrum.
MoChiMu’s first floor also has a Tall Tales Stage for some pretend time; a Changing Color exhibit; and the Water Lab, a hands-on liquid laboratory that follows water’s journey from the mountains to our valley and onward to the ocean.
MoChiMu’s second floor is where to find the Air Lab, where children get to experiment with the invisible force by sending propellers spinning, balls rolling, and scarves soaring. Experiment with flight in a wind column; navigate a wall of intertwined tubes to follow air’s flow, and balance balls on columns of air as you race through obstacle courses of their own design.
Upstairs is the Valley Proud, a mock grocery store that delights a child’s imagination. Children can sort and group to stock shelves; fill a cart by following a shopping list; or share their family’s culinary traditions and food stories in a perfectly-sized play café.
The second floor also features the Little Rainbows play area for those three years and younger and the MSR Maker Lab, where children can experiment with new tools and processes ranging from robotics to art; engineering to ecology.
MoChiMu, at 928 11th St., in downtown Modesto, is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Tuesdays when it is closed.
Tickets are $15 for every age except those 11 months and younger, which have free admission.
For more information or for tickets, visit https://www.modestochildrensmuseum.org.
