Established in 1977, the Children's Museum of Richmond is dedicated towards providing young children with all they need to stimulate a spirit of learning and wonder, while also making the learning experience as exciting and captivating as possible.
The museum houses a number of interactive exhibits or Learning Environments as they are called. The Great Outdoors Section aims to recreate the topography of Virginia, which the children can explore and hence learn about. They can float boats down the James River, create their own floods and then build dams to contain them and even experiment with waterfalls, waterwheels and squirts to learn about the scientific principals that govern them. the recreated Virginia limestone caves lets them venture into a world of stalactites and stalagmites and even learn about how these caves came into being.
From here, young minds can then rummage through the backyard, which houses the immensely popular 'Apple-a-day' orchard, where they learn how these fruits are grown, harvested and eventually find their way to the dinner table, run a grocery store in the U Shop Market, and even toss up their own delicacies which they sell to adult customers in the 'What's Cooking Kitchen and World Café'. Science has never been quite as fun as the Children's Museum of Richmond makes it. From voyaging into the world of color at the Light Table to diving into the Sandbox and even popping into the Inventors' Lab, where towers and bridges take shape from the simplest of building blocks, there's no limit to just what you can learn and discover while at the museum.
The museum also hosts a number of events throughout the year, which includes the delicious annual gingerbread festival, afternoon art classes, and even storytelling sessions. Details of the museum's events are regularly updated on their website http://www.c-mor.org .
The Children's Museum of Richmond is open to visitors from 9.30 am to 5 pm, Monday through Saturday and 12 noon to 5 pm on Sunday. Admission is charged at $7 per person and a discounted rate of $4, if you happen to visit after 4 pm.
