Located on the Navy Pier, this museum was the perfect place to let kiddos explore and play indoors while in Chicago. With several amazing exhibits - like the firefighting area, construction building section or dinosaur dig area, there's something for every aged kid and kid at heart.
The museum paid homage to the Chicago fire department and the great Chicago fire. There was a popular firetruck to drive and climb aboard. Water hoses, boots and jackets were set up for mini firefighter to dress up and put out pretend fires. There was a fire pole for you to go down and a little area to practice crawling through a room in case of a fire.
Another popular area was the boat room. There were several boats to ride on - sail boats, fishing boats, canoes, row boats, and even a house boat. Fishing poles, bait and play fish were "sold" on the dock where there was plenty of play money to purchase whatever you needed for your fishing trip.
The pirate ropes climbing activity was really neat, but I was most impressed by the staff members. They never touched the climbers, but when they were stuck the staff gave incredible instructions and were so encouraging! When the climber finally achieved the goal, they were sooo happy for them! It was really neat to watch how they interacted with them.
The dinosaur was such a cool feature, too!
Since Chicago is known for it's many skyscrapers, it makes sense for them to have a special exhibit for building skyscrapers! We loved wearing hardhats and using hammers to build onto the buildings already started. They even have a digger for kiddos to play in.
Bragging on the staff some more, there's a Montessori style room for children 0-5 and it was probably one of my favorite things. The staff members in there were so knowledgeable and were actively playing with the children, which I just thought was so cool! This room was really incredible. There's only a certain amount of people they allow in the room for the hour long session. When you enter, you take off your shoes so the littlest ones are free to crawl on the ground and explore. There was several activities to keep the attention of those 0-5.
The little city area is another cute area with a play bus, car wash, grocery store, library and a quiet space for nursing or feeding mothers. We played on this bus for more time than I care to admit.
I think this "wooded" area was probably one of my favorites. The log cabin was super cute with a play kitchen and other house items. There was a little rock formation for water play. There was a cave and a treehouse with slides. A small rock climbing wall was on the other side of the rock waterfall. Best of all, this area had an area for small friends, less than a year old. The mats were arranged with mirrors and wooden pull up bars!
All throughout the museum were little couches or rocking chairs for priority seating for those breast or bottle feeding. There was a designated crawling space in the treehouse area just for those who don't yet walk. This was so exciting to see because I think sometimes infant's get left out of the planning of exhibits. While most is geared towards children who are over a year, I feel like there was plenty of opportunities for my infant to play, too.