Mississippi Children's Museum — Attraction in Jackson

The Mississippi Children’s Museum is one of the best in the nation. Children can explore three and a half different indoor floors of themed, hands-on interactive exhibits.

Downstairs features a crawl-through digestive system, a river in which they can fish for toy catfish, a station where they can build their own boats, a music room, a play kitchen, a mock house, a library, and a giant Scrabble board.

The middle floor has area showcasing Mississippi points of interest, a shrimp boat with a twisty slide, a baby play area, a little log cabin, a piney woods maze, and a tiny slide that represents Mount Woodall, Mississippi’s highest point.

The top floor has an area where they can play loggers; a play area themed as a farm; a working, child-sized crane and foam I-beams; a place to build a home; a full-size Nissan Sentra that shows children different systems of a car and lets them change tires, pump gas, and pretend they are behind the wheel; and different interactive games that showcase the collection of different forms of energy. The top floor also hosts traveling exhibits, the main entrance and the gift shop.

Don’t miss the half floor. It’s easy to miss, but you’ll regret not seeing it. It’s a short staircase that leads to a basement, which represents the world underneath. Kids can crawl through soil-themed tunnels, look at exhibits about oil and minerals, and some of the tunnels lead to staircases that climb to other parts of the museum, and children can look out of these secret windows and see the areas they have been.

Outside, there is a story garden, a tower, an area with sand, and a water feature.

If you’re in Jackson, or just passing through, it’s a great place to let your kids work out...

We visited the children’s museum in December of 2024 for a 5th grade t-shirt. They were VERY disorganized and inconsiderate of our prior booking and the agreed upon details. Our group was asked to re-assemble our groups into 2 rather than the 3 we had been told before. We were also placed in a room with much younger kids, and then berated when our students tried to play in this area (despite the fact that we had specifically asked for the 5th graders to stay together in every area so this problem did not occur). Several staff members were VERY unfriendly and unhelpful, and they didn’t seem to have any sort of communication with each other to be able to find a solution to the problems. We were also misled to believe that one of the main attractions would be much larger and it ended up being a tiny room that only a couple children could comfortably play in at one time. In addition to that, we were told that we would have to remove our STEM activity from our itinerary, despite that being one of the main purposes for our visit. Eventually, a nice man named Jason came and helped us sort everything out and salvage the rest of the trip. Still, it was overall quite disappointing and I would expect a large, reputable museum such as this one to do a better job of accommodating a large group of 10-11 year olds. I am sad that we were so misled that this place would be a great experience for them, and it feels as if we have...

I took my almost 4 yr old granddaughter, she had a blast. We toured the whole place, everything is interactive for the kids. I was disappointed that the art area wasn't stocked well with paper or any pencil sharpeners for colored pencils. They have 2 areas of splash pads, one is in the front that's free to anyone which is only water spouts shooting out of the ground but they only shoot for a few seconds and then stop, I don't know I was just disappointed in it, plus where the adults sit and watch, there were fire ants so you basically couldn't sit down. The other splash pad is included with your entrance to the museum outside the right side of the building, it was only a large umbrella type thing sprinkling water and a sand box a few feet away. I was shocked that was all there was, I expected more. One and done for me taking her there. At least we got to spend a few hours together inside out of the heat this summer. They have a snack bar that wasn't too bad, choices were pizza, roll up sandwiches, chips, sodas, water, I can't fully remember but maybe chicken fingers. She got the pizza and I got a roll up sandwich, which...