Our recent family adventure had us traveling to Omaha, NE for a long weekend. Mommy And Me Travels experienced many fun family activities in the area. One of those fun adventures was the Omaha Children’s Museum. For this review of Omaha Children’s Museum, I will give you the perspective from me as the mommy and both of my boys, little man (6 years old) and baby man (1 and ½ years old). Here are our 3 favorite exhibit areas to visit at the museum with younger kiddos. Without further ado, let’s explore and review the Omaha Children’s Museum!
This post is in response to a sponsored trip where we were provided discounts during our visit to Omaha. Here at Mommy And Me Travels we always provide our honest opinions, findings, beliefs, and/or experiences on topics, events, and/or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely my own. You can read more about this on our disclosure page here.
Overview of Omaha Children’s Museum for kids:
The museum is located in the area of Old Market within Omaha. Omaha Children’s Museum is home too many permanent exhibits plus special traveling exhibits on the top level. During our visit we had the pleasure to explore and interact with the special Enchanted Kingdom Exhibit. The Omaha Children’s Museum is open every day of the week from Memorial Day through Labor Day. In the winter months the museum is closed on Mondays. Entrance is $13 for adults and kids 2 and over (July 19), kids under 24 months are free. You can double check times and cost on their website here. The focus of the Omaha Children’s Museum seems to be a hands on learning experience. This is an amazing way for adults and kids alike to learn while playing. Bonus is that you can try some of these at home also.
Imagination Playground – Omaha Children’s Museum: 
If you have younger kids like I do, I ensure you that you won’t miss the imagination playground. It is directly on the left when you walk into the area after paying. My kids saw it immediately and beeline straight for it. As first time guest this was a good place for them to start playing and allow me to look at the map and get a feel of where we should visit and in which order.
In this area you will find a hy-vee grocery store, hospital and medical center, a climbing structure that looks like a firehouse, a river like water table, a bank, a cooking area, and a barn. Also for the smallest ones in your family (under 3) a wiggle room with toys sized just right for their playing enjoyment.
Little Man’s Exploration of the Imagination Playground:
Gray just turned 6 so he had a more strategic approach to this area. First we went into the bank and withdrew money for buying the groceries. While buying groceries he kept counting to make sure he wasn’t over his money. He loved getting to choose everything himself. We checked out and headed over to the cooking area. He prepared baby man and me a delicious meal that he made up all by himself. While cleaning up he (imaginarily) broke a plate and cut his hand. We were then off to the medical area of the play zone to get it all fixed up. After completing his imaginary fun day, we ventured around with baby man and let them both climb and play in the other areas at the play zone.
Baby Man’s Exploration of the Imagination Playground:
JT is young and loves to touch everything. His absolute favorite thing in this area was the water table. Since he will literally try to crawl up and swim on the table, I was pleased to see that the Omaha Children’s Museum had thought of this ahead of him and provides (free of charge) little rain jackets for the kids to wear while playing at the table. It didn’t keep him completely dry but he was a lot dryer than if he had not had one. In between running to play at the table he really enjoyed crawling around the firehouse and barn with his brother.
Science and Technology Center – Omaha Children’s Museum:
When we left the imagination playground, we headed into the science and technology center exhibit. The Omaha Children’s Museum hit the nail on the head when they came up with this exhibit. This was by far the favorite for all of us. JT started running around collecting balls immediately and Gray found a bucket to collect balls in. At first I had to observe what exactly was going on to explain to my boys what they were supposed to do. The objective of this exhibit is to collect balls but drop them into different tubes and watch them move with air through the different areas. This type of interactive play is great to help increase a childs curiosity in scientific explorations. Once I showed JT what to do, it was all over. This quickly became all of ours favorite zone to explore.
Little Man’s Adventure through the Science and Technology Center:
Balls, balls, and more balls. Gray quickly realized that there were buckets available for gathering these balls. He scooped up a bucket and started shoveling balls into it. He then wanted to visit every pipe and watch the balls move through it to discover where they ended up. His favorite activity in this area ended up being a game that he and his brother played at the back of the exhibit. There is a wall of white tubing that you put a ball into the air pocket and then it gets spitted back out at a higher area on the wall. The game went like this: JT puts ball into air pocket. Gray watches intensely to see which hole it would be spit out. Then Gray tries to catch the ball in the bucket. They played this game for like 30 minutes. It was so adorable to watch.
Baby Man’s Adventure through the Science and Technology Center:
JT’s favorite toys right now are balls. So needless to say, he was in hog heaven as soon as we walked into this exhibit. He gathered as many balls as possible into his arms and then was just walking around with them. After showing him that he could collect them and dump them into a tube, he stayed in one spot watching one ball after the other disappear into a metal tube for close to 30 minutes. Later, he joined his big brother on the back wall and started playing the game with him. The Omaha Children’s Museum definitely has a winner with the younger kiddos in the Science and Technology Center.
Enchanted Kingdom – Omaha Children’s Museum:
Currently the special exhibit at the Omaha Children’s Museum is the Enchanted Kingdom. To visit it you will have to make your way upstairs. Don’t miss letting your kiddos dress up in a superhero outfit and run up the stairs like superman. As you enter the magical Enchanted Kingdom area you will notice dragons, rock creatures, and princesses all around. A must is story time with Thistle the dragon. My boys thought it was great having a dragon read to them about unicorns. There are several different narration times with different stories so check the board right outside the entrance before swinging in to say Hi to Thistle. Along with story time make sure you visit the mirror maze, ride the train, take a spin on the carousal, and explore around all the castles.
Little Man’s and Baby Man’s Magical Journey through the Enchanted Kingdom:
Entering the Enchanted Kingdom, Gray was immediate drawn to the huge dragon hanging out in the corner. This happened to be Thistle. She wasn’t currently preforming story time but we were able to go up and “pet” her and take our pictures. Exiting Thistle’s area is a mirror maze. The boys were off and running into every mirror in the maze. They were laughing and having a great time. Afterwards we rode the train and took a spin on the carousal. Both of these rides cost an extra $2 and tickets can be purchased at a kiosk in-between them. It was time for Thistle to read Unicorn Tales. This experience was improved upon when the Omaha Children’s Museum provided with ribbons for all the kids to use for interaction while the story is being read. We finished our magical exploration of all the castles and slides before heading back downstairs and exiting the museum.
Wrap Up!
The Omaha Children’s Museum has a lot more exhibits than I focused on here. The one’s mentioned are our favorites and mostly due to the age of my children. If you have older kids I would still recommend you visit and check out the other exhibits like the tinker lab and art smart center. There is so many fun things to choose from that I am sure you and your family will have a great adventure exploring all of the hands on activities available at the Omaha Children’s Museum. We had a great time in Nebraska. Check out these other fun activities that you can discover in the area.
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Collecting balls in buckets and sending them down tubes sounds like great fun! I would be joining in that.
This sounds so amazing for kids! I loved taking my kids to our local children’s museum when they were younger.
Children’s Museums are always a great learning and fun place to hang out with the kids. We have a bunch we used to visit when my kids were younger.
Museums are always high on my list of places to visit while traveling. I hope my kids develop that same love! Taking them to places they will love and making good memories is such a great start!
Oh I love children’s museums and how interactive they are. Both places look like a lot of fun!
IT looks like such an amazing Children’s museum. I know my daughter would have loved this when she was younger. We love the science and technology museums like this.
Sounds like a really fun museum for kids of all different ages. And how cool that they have all these different sections to it!
I have so many fond memories of my parents taking me to the Children’s Museum in Chicago. So glad to see you and your family making great memories at the museum in Omaha!
Omg having different sections is genius!
We love the Houston Children’s Museum, so I’m sure my boys would love this one, too! It looks like such a great place to visit.
I love taking Liam to childrens museums. I had no idea how much fun they would be!
Omaha Children’s Museum looks like great fun, with lots to do! I like how there are all different zones focusing on different things.