At Navy Pier, the Chicago Children’s Museum builds childhood at full scale: kids can climb a three-story schooner to the crow’s nest, excavate dinosaur bones in the Dinosaur Expedition pit, splash and engineer in Water Ways, and invent wild contraptions in the Tinkering Lab. For the youngest visitors, Pritzker Playspace offers a padded, gentle world of first discoveries.
Daily programs bring artists, builders and performers into the mix, and the museum’s lakefront home means the Ferris wheel and lake views are part of the day. It’s been a Chicago family rite of passage since 1982 – bring a change of clothes for the water table and let them play it all.
