Terre Haute Children's Museum — Attraction in Terre Haute

Hibernia House of Studies from Montgomery County visited the Terre Haute Children’s Museum with six students and another home school with two and found it a very nice place! Very efficient use of space so that it is relatively easy to keep track of an active group of students. We visited on a school day and found it wide open for our group. So many very nice interactive and educational exhibits! Many of them are donated and sponsored by generous local citizens as well as businesses and corporations and the city. All of it was really excellent, even if some items were a bit dated. Three floors! Favorites included the play grocery store, tree house, water works and pipe organ exhibit (16yo), sand box, physics, etc. — too numerous to mention!

The staff was super helpful and friendly, but not very interactive, whatever the policy is there. They might look for numerous opportunities to draw students’ attention to overlooked details of exhibits or help in making the most of interactive experiences. They were most accommodating with their dining area and offering paper plates and other items if needed.

Down sides that could easily be addressed included a low background of unnecessary radio music inappropriate for school children (Ozzy Osborne?!), an outdated food chart with emphasis on grains and less on good fats, and the ag exhibit could meet more interactive (e.g. real grain in the augers). I also read in previous reviews that they required masking as late as 2022. We would be very disappointed and would NOT visit if masks were required. Hopefully the science is well established by now that they would never require that of children again.

Over all a great experience, but to work on some of those things could earn another star (I wish I...

While it's not a bad value for their meager entrance fee, my grandson enjoyed this a lot more than I did. It suffers from problems that seem to plague all places of this type. They have a water lab where the water pressure is too low to perform any of the "experiments". A few exhibits are in unusable disrepair and appear to have been that way for some time. There was clearly a snack bar of some sort that was not open and the place was very busy and could have been making money hand-over-fist. Their ropes course (an upcharge which costs more than the entry fee to the museum) is quite scary for a six-year-old (or even a 41 year old with a bad back) and seems to be the number one priority of the place instead of anything actually museum-like. They maybe need to consider not trying to be educational and just become a giant indoor playground. The exhibits that were functional were quite dated and not likely to appeal to today's children. Most places lagging behind like this cite funding concerns, but their concessions weren't open. A well-run food and drink station could easily pay for the minor repairs and updates needed throughout the building. They did have a lot of healthy drinks in their vending machines, but no food. We had to walk three blocks to find 10 dollar hamburgers. It's not a waste of money by any means, if you're close, but I regretted the 90 minute drive when we could have had just as much fun and learning at our local parks without...

I took my 6 year old grandson here yesterday as we have gone many times in the past. I’m so grateful that Terre Haute has had this fun, learning facility for many years. Sadly, there has been a slow deterioration of it’s condition. Gone are so many of the activities and several are broken and cannot be used. I understand that the recent Pandemic and ensuing financial crunch have affected the budget of the museum. I did however have a problem with the surly attitudes of the staff and volunteers. That alone makes for an unpleasant atmosphere. I am a senior citizen and have mobility issues. I needed to sit down and couldn’t find ANY chairs on which to rest in at least 90% of the exhibit areas. Next time I’ll definitely bring my own folding lawn chair! I’m going to ask the museum director if I can donate some inexpensive resin chairs because I’m sure there many other adults who would welcome the opportunity to get off their feet while watching their children play and learn. I don’t regret our visit yesterday since the reason I took my little guy was because he really wanted to go. He had a good time and that is...