Oakland Museum of California
The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) features the art, history, and natural science of California. Our mission is to inspire all Californians to create a more vibrant future for themselves and their communities.
Try the Oakland Museum! Surprisingly kid-friendly on the bottom two floors. The cafe doesn't cater to kids' tastes, so bring nibbles. Also not open until....11:00 am, which is not ideal, but my grandsons love it there.
Oakland Museum of CA! Perfect indoor for toddlers with lots of interactive exhibits specifically designed for kids, plus nice outdoor space. If it’s convenient for you to go regularly I’d recommend a membership for sure.
if you’re a library member A) the main library is a fun free place with toys (and books, duh) but all branches I’ve been to have nice kid areas and B) the discover and go passes get you free tickets to so many places! Not sure how Covid changed things, but each card used to get once/year free tickets to exploratorium and ca academy of sciences plus lots more.
tilden little farm in the Berkeley hills is super fun if you bring lettuce or celery for the animals and they have an indoor nature center too.
Totland in Berkeley is a great park for little kids
Oakland Museum on Friday evenings...check their website..they may be on winter break
Try the Friday nights at the Oakland Museum of California. There are always plenty of kids, and usually one music group in the ampitheater playing world music or hip hop and often a smaller jazz ensemble playing upstairs at the other entrance. You only have to pay if you go into the galleries and there's a lot of food trucks too. My four year old loves it!
I am not sure if a membership to this museum allows entrance to other venues or how old your kids are but Oakland Museum of California is an awesome museum and reasonbly priced. It is huge and has a lot to do there. It took us several trips to get through the entire museum. My kids were in 5th grade and we had the membership for a couple of years. Also if you visit seattle, EMP museum is great and teens can get in free through registering with teentix.org which issues a card to get teens into various museums ls in Seattle. Teentix is a program that promotes exposing teens to the arts. Www.teentix.org
Hope this helps. Have fun!
Archived Q&A and Reviews
Oct 2001
I just visited the Oakland Museum on Oak St. w/ two toddlers and it was fun. Their cafe actually attracts patrons from blocks away! The animal section was fun for them, and they spent lots of time climbing in circles on the burl wood structure and running around near the fish ponds with the dozens of children from the field trips. I wouldn't recommend the California history area where they could get into the exhibits. The fee was only $6 for adults, under 4 free. Susan
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