Exhibits

The heart and soul of the museum is our visitors and the quality of their experience. The exhibits were conceived with children and their open ended learning experience at the core. The museum exhibits are a celebration of exploration and discovery – a visually exciting environment filled with innovative and richly layered cognitive experiences in science, mathematics, technology and the arts.

The First Floor Gallery of the Children's Discovery Museum is Discover My World. This gallery puts children in charge as it focuses on a child’s world and what they need to know about themselves and how the world works around them.

Clock Tower- Walk into the Discover My World gallery and you can’t miss the 14-foot tall clock tower, the tallest icon on the first floor. Rising high above the other areas, it holds a variety of clocks that tell time in different ways and creates our center core for the My Place and Train Express exhibits.

Your first stop in the Discover My World gallery could be a little nook called My Place. This area features the facade of a house with cubbies galore. Little ones decorate these cubbies to look like rooms in their house. In My Place is an endless Brio Plan Table where children can create their own city and travel from place to place. Older children enjoy the simulated computer games where they create their own neighborhood or learn map-making skills using fun computer activities.

Train Express- Children create a train system of their own using Brio Train Tracks and Trains. Also within Train Express is a model train station. This area holds a working model train system that kids can watch run. This model train system was donated by the family of former Illinois Wesleyan University president Minor Myers.

One and Only Me contains exhibits about a child’s “outside” physical appearance and each child’s uniqueness. Visitors may explore their “outside” through a projection microscope to examine skin, a strand of hair, or their fingernails. All ages enjoy the Pinscreen: 3D Me! There is also a computer height checker, plus several tabletop and computer activity stations.

Inside Me- Begin as you walk through a giant head to explore your organs, x-rays, skeleton, and look at your “insides” through Wentzscopes. Get hands-on as you play in our Build with BONZ station, Meet Mr. Bones, the only skeleton who knows how to ride a bike, plus enjoy lots of tabletop and computer activity stations.

Kids’ Medical Center- Walk through a giant red cross, don your very own doctor’s coat and get ready to diagnose ailments. Hop around a bit and then listen to your heart on the heart drum. Future surgeons hone their operating skills, while others practice first aid on a variety of “patients.”

It’s the children who are in charge in the Main Street Market. They fill their shopping carts with a variety of nutritious food items including fruits, veggies and dairy. Then off to the checkout they go. One moment they are the cashier ringing up the purchases, the next they stock shelves and bake bread.

Make your next stop a nutritious one… at the Nutrition Café. Order from the menu and watch your little one serve it up in our diner. But be careful and make good food choices for a healthy body and strong bones!

One of our most popular exhibits, the Sugar Creek Water Play area, is sure to make a big impression on your little ones. Children pump water and watch the water wheel go. They sink and float a variety of toys, and use pipes and connectors to channel water their own way! This is lots of fun for your budding engineer.

Finally, for our youngest visitor, is the Toddler Backyard. This exhibit features a tree house with a mini climbing wall, a slide, and lots of nooks and crannies to crawl through with mirrors galore. This area also boasts many educational and fun experiences for an infant to experience with a loving adult. And while you’re here, take a look at the variety of educational resources for parents about parenting, children and child development.

Venture now to the Museum’s second floor. Gain access to the two-story Luckey Climber, learn how to better treat the environment in Oh Rubbish, harvest corn and milk the cows in the world’s largest children’s museum agriculture exhibit, AgMazing, experiment with airflow in our ImagineAir exhibit, and then plop down to read a book in our Reading Garden.

In AgMazing, visitors can plant seeds, investigate crop stress factors, drive a tractor and combine, crank the auger to move the grain, process soybeans, milk a cow, and much more as they explore their way to understanding the science and technology of agriculture today.

ImagineAir is designed for children to play with the force of moving air to make things happen. Children use air to elevate objects on our two air tables. The air maze is a full wall of giant tubes with several air pathways changed through diverter boxes… where will it come out?

Oh Rubbish is designed to address the root cause of our environment problem of “too much trash.” It teaches children and adults to reduce – reuse – recycle – RETHINK! Walk through our lifelike landfill and view objects that shouldn’t be there. Play with the trash sort, listen to trash stories, and much more.

Around the corner from Oh Rubbish is the Reading Garden, a cozy spot to cuddle up and read more about some of the things they encountered in their visit to the Museum. Books in the Reading Garden are provided by the Normal Public Library, and are rotated on a regular basis.

What is a Luckey Climber? Ours is a two-story climber suspended from the ceiling. It features four access/exit points that children enter and begin their ascent to the third floor. With twists, turns and dead-ends, you never know where you might find yourself. Once you’re at the top, you’ll feel like the king of the world. But don’t relax just yet, for you must find your way down and out! For kids and their adventurous grown ups.

The future “Plays” on the third floor of the Museum as visitors get down and funky in our multicolor Recollections Room, explore the inner artist in our Art Studio, paint a masterpiece on the gigantic Paint Wall, enjoy a game on the giant checkers and chess set, watch things spin, hop, rattle, roll and make music in the amazing Ball Machine, and play with another 3D Pinscreen.

The Art Studio is rich with tools and supplies used by artists. Visitors will create their own masterpieces using a variety of changing mediums. This has quickly become a favorite area for many of our visitors.

The Recollections Room is a projection room in which visitors can create colorful, life-sized images of themselves. Children and adults love the opportunity to explore the fun of motion and time.

The next generation Paint Wall has made its return to the Children's Discovery Museum! Test your hand at being an artist as you paint fun and creative masterpieces within the whimsical, colorful paint stations.

An odd contraption has made its home on the third floor of the Museum. Known only as the Ball Machine, it has quickly made its way into the hearts of both children and their playful grownups. Come take it for a spin and you’ll see why it is now one of the Museum’s most colorful and well-loved exhibits.