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The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester: For Kids and Kids At Heart
posted by Teresa Farrell at 2018-05-16 05:22:00
Whether you’re travelling with kids or are just a kid at heart yourself, don’t miss the opportunity to visit the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester this summer. The museum combines the hands-on, kid-friendly activities and exhibits of a children’s museum with a cultural and historic content of a history museum, and it all centers around the ultimate topic of fun: play.
From dolls to toys, board games to video and electronic games, to books and other documents, the museum is home to more than 400,000 toys, games and other memorabilia and artifacts, and more than 100,000 feet of exhibit space, making it one of the largest history museums in the country and one of the top museums for families and kids as well. The Strong is also home to the National Toy Hall of Fame, along with the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden, the only indoor butterfly garden in Upstate New York that remains open to the public all year round.
Kids will love the life size board games and storybooks, and finding their favorite comic, video game, and other characters on display is always a thrill. One of the museum’s most popular interactive exhibits is the Wegmans Super Kids Market, where kids can emulate the experience of staffing and shopping at the grocery store by taking part in everything from pushing shopping carts through the aisles and selecting realistic-looking food products to staffing the bakery counter and the cash registers—which are specially designed to work like real registers, processing transactions and printing receipts.
Meanwhile, adults from any generation can feel like kids again themselves, reminiscing about their own childhood toys on display and even learning new things and gaining surprising new insights about them. What does the game of Monopoly say about the mindset of the time period surrounding the Great Depression? How do the most popular toys and games of the 1980s exemplify the impact and attitudes of Cold War culture? The answers to these questions—and many others that you may never have imagined before—are waiting at The Strong. So don’t wait to plan your trip to Rochester and check it out!
PHOTO CREDITS:
Helicopter pic, Wegmans store Pics, Brick façade pic: Credit Peter C via flickr
Pinball machines: Cory Doctorow via flickr
Sorry piece, Sonic and picacho, Crayola, Twister pics: Credit kimeke1 via flickr
posted at: 2018-05-16 05:22:00, last updated: 2018-05-16 05:46:09