Habitot Children's Museum

Focus: Hands-on discovery museum perfectly tailored for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and families.

Ages: 0-7

Cost: $7 Child(under 12 mo. FREE), $6 Adult; 10% discount Sr/disabled

Major Exhibits: Habitot's hands on exhibits and indoor play areas are especially for infants, toddlers and young children. The museum's six small-scale theme exhibits create a learning, discovery and play space for kids and their families. Fun exhibits encourage parent child interactions with multi-sensory learning games and activities. Exhibits reflect the ethnically diverse and environmentally sensitive Bay Area community.Exhibits are open daily. "Rocket Ship" Now Showing on the Dramatic Arts Stage Back from a two-year trip into outer space, Habitot's popular Rocketship has returned! All budding astronauts and mission control engineers are invited to test out the new equipment and begin planning the Mars mission. Buttons and lights on the mission control panel, with communication devices to the manned module, astronaut costumes, and a rocketship blasting into outer space will engage young and old alike. Waterworks The Water play gallery offers three components: river ramp for creating and damming streams; a pumping station problem solving activity and a water table filled with waterwheels, buckets with holes, pitchers and fishing rods; activities help young children formulate scientific concepts of gravity and motion, the power of falling water, and pumping.Surrounding walls offer mural-making with foam blocks on a water/ocean theme. Drop-in Art Studio Every day, a new activity in Habitot's Drop-in Art Studio! Come prepared to "get messy" with creative, open-ended art -- just what young children need for brain development and hands-on skills. The studio features an enormous paintable wall for murals and group painting projects; a sculpture table with clay, play-doh, gak or other sculpture material; and a mixed-media table offering collage, printing, finger painting, foam painting, recycled art, paper mache -- a different activity every day. The studio is staffed full-time with knowledgeable art educators. Little Town Grocery & Café Small-scale shopping carts, fruits, vegetables and breads sorted into grocery bins, and cash registers create the context of a grocery, while at the adjacent counters, on bar stools and at tables of the café, parents and children order from menus and serve food to customers; experiences in this exhibit facilitate social learning and parent-child interactions. Some of the items in the grocery bins, plastic sushi rolls, matzo bread, burritos and mangoes, have sparked conversations between families identifying foods common to their cultures. Infant-Toddler Garden A picket fence/gated area especially for infants, crawlers and early walkers. Floor to ceiling murals and softly carpeted floor surround the very young with the images of a garden; interactives like a wooden carrot patch for harvesting and replacing carrots, a Velcro wall of soft block shapes, a pretend pond and a butterfly mobile provide appropriate tactile and visual stimulation for infants. The culture of food, gardening and agriculture is well-developed in the Bay Area and this exhibit introduces these themes in developmentally-appropriate ways. Wiggle Wall Gives children a worm's eye view of their underground tunnels; children navigate through a vertical maze of simple passageways from floor-to-ceiling; parents and children can see each other through net covered openings and giant optic lenses; exhibit presents memory challenges, builds confidence and helps children see the world through someone else's eyes.

Class Trip Pricing: Group visit costs are $4.25 per person. All visitors are charged admission at this discounted group rate. Children under the 6-child minimum or over the 15-child limit, without special approval, will be charged $6. Low-income preschools (Head Start and state-supported schools), and other social service agencies like homeless shelters, disabled children's programs and library literacy programs are eligible for free field trips to the museum (up to four per year). To qualify, 60% of the children in the group must receive state or federal assistance. The field trip date must be reserved in advance -- no free visits will be given to groups that arrive without booking in advance.

Class Trip Programs: Schedule a fun group field trip to Habitot! Preschools, family day cares, summer youth programs, church groups, library literacy programs, mom & dad groups, play groups, hospital-based programs, homeless shelters, teen parent centers and many others are welcome. Many groups are eligible for FREE field trips to the museum, including low-income preschools, Head Start and state or county-supported schools, as well as many social service agencies, homeless shelters, disabled children's programs and library literacy programs.

Notes:

Habitot Children's Museum is the East Bay's best place for young children. Our hands-on exhibits, drop-in art studio, and events are perfectly tailored for infants, toddlers, preschoolers and families.  Habitot also offers children's, parenting and educator classes and group visits, birthday parties, workshops, and family resources.