Explore Great Explorations Children’s Museum and Sunken Gardens
Great Explorations Children’s Museum in St. Petersburg is a place your child can truly enjoy being a kid, a place where you won’t find kids playing on mobile devices because instead, they are using their creativity and imagination to explore and learn to play. It’s a place my 6- and 2-year-olds love. In fact, I took them there to write this story and I was once again reminded of the pure joy they get when visiting this gem.
The 23,000-square-foot museum is filled with exhibits and activities to stimulate learning through creativity, play and exploration. Designed for children 10 and younger, this small museum has a lot to do!
Here are Five of our Great Exploration Faves!
My First Market: A child-sized Publix supermarket allows kids to stroll aisles and look for food items with their own shopping cart or basket. Kids shop for their own products, but they can also pretend to be a cashier with a register and scanner to check out others’ shopping.
Pet Vet: Kids can learn about the importance of caring for a pet. The exhibit features microscopes, a grooming table with working blow dryer, x-ray viewers and an exam table. Kids can also use ribbons and bows to groom their play pet.
News Station: Kids can experience the thrill of seeing themselves on TV. They can sit at a Bay News 9 News Desk to write a story or read a prewritten script. The camera puts them into their own newscast. There’s even a button to push and hear a breaking news animation used in real newscasts.
Dentist Office: A surprising favorite – kids can pretend to clean a manatee or alligator's teeth, master the art of brushing with a fun interactive germ-vanquishing game, scrub a ginormous tooth and more in this multi-part exhibit. And be sure to watch out for the Tooth Fairy's home, which is hidden discretely just outside the exhibit!
Connie's Cove Climber: Stretching from floor to ceiling, this ginormous climbing structure is the centerpiece of Great Explorations and features a fun boat house/pirate ship with a SCUBA “Dive Shop” at the top to explore. With tons of creative elements hidden all throughout, kids have a blast climbing, sliding, and even pretending to drive a submarine.
Other must-sees include Team STEAM’s daily Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math activities and a terrific gift shop with unique educational toys, crafts and science experiments.
Sunken Gardens
Sunken Gardens is right next door to the Great Explorations Children’s Museum and is a great place for parents and kids to spend an hour or two. It is a 100-year-old garden that is home to some of the oldest tropical plants in the region. You can stroll through paths flanked by exotic plants from around the world, discover beautiful cascading waterfalls and learn about native plants and imports while walking under a canopy of palm trees.
Kids will also enjoy seeing the beautiful flamingos and chasing butterflies down winding paths. Children’s classes are held on Saturdays to teach kids about topics like frogs and toads or wildflowers.
Be sure to check out the website www.Sunkengardens.org