Museum Mania! Wild and Wacky Virtual Museum Visits

You like chocolate?  There's a chocolate museum.  You like yo-yos?  There's a yo-yo museum.  You like Samurais?  There's a Samurai museum.  You like cool cars?  There's a car museum.  You like rattlesnakes?  There's a rattlesnake museum.  You like pizza?  There's a pizza museum.  You like Pippi Longstocking?  There's a Pippi Longstocking Museum.
Name something you like.  Add the word "museum."  Google it.  See?
What, there's no museum for the thing you like?
That means you have to start one. 

Libraries and museums are cousins.  They both have collections that are curated.  That means, everything housed there was thoughtfully chosen to be included.  Both libraries and museums have materials that have to be thoughtfully organized and displayed.  Both contain lots of information that may be new and interesting.  Both have collections that are shared with all of us!

We think of museums are places with objects.  But in a way, the zoo is an animal museum.  The aquarium is a fish museum.  Even the flower conservatory is a plant museum.  Have you ever thought of it like that?  And a library is kind of a book museum...though you can borrow the collection, and they don't let you do that at the zoo!  Some public museums have parts of their collections you can borrow, but most of it stays there to be conserved or displayed.  Sometimes libraries have special exhibits, but mostly they have books you can borrow or use.

Some museums are very fancy, big marble buildings with huge, valuable collections like the Smithsonian Museums in Washington D.C. or the Louvre Art Museum in Paris. These museums have treasures in them, real, original, one-of-a-kind items that can't be replaced, like the actual Star Spangled Banner or real dinosaur bones or the Apollo 11 Command Module or the painting of the Mona Lisa.  These valuable things are kept in the museums for all of us to appreciate.  We all can visit and enjoy them, isn't that amazing?

We are so lucky to live in Chicago.  There are so many museums, big and small.  There's my favorite, The Museum of Science and Industry.  I like the Christmas Trees from Around the World display in December, the old time Main Street, the Great Train Story model, but most of all, the Colleen Moore Fairy Castle.  I would go just to see that!

The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum has a magical live butterfly room. Of course, there is the favorite Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier, and not too far from that, the Chicago Art Institute is a pride of the city with the lions out front.  When I was in fifth grade, I was not so interested in art museums, but my teacher Mrs. Schultz made our visit there extra fun by taking us to the gift shop first (always a good idea, like dessert first).  She treated each of us to a postcard, and then we went on a treasure hunt to find the artworks that matched inside the museum. That made it much more exciting!  Now I appreciate art and art museums more, especially the colorful pieces at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen and the beautiful storytelling murals at the Black Chicago Museum.

We have the Chicago Museum Campus with the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium.  When I was little I was scared of the Field Museum, with all the stuffed animals and the mummies!  These museums can be very expensive, but there are free days and limited free passes available at the Chicago Public Library so everyone can go.  I think that many of you have already had school field trips to some of these big and elegant museums!

I sometimes prefer the slightly smaller museums around town, like the Chicago History Museum with its cool dioramas, the Chicago Fire exhibit and the chance to pretend to ride a real vintage trolley or climb into a hot dog bun. The wonderful Chinese American Museum of Chicago is where I go to visit Dusty the Dragon's cousin. I love the Viking ship at the Swedish American Museum. Since our school is on the North Side, we can also easily enjoy the marvelous Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston, which has so many remarkable artifacts and the Toby Jug Museum, also in Evanston, which will shock you with the beauty and quantity of the collection!

Some museums are mostly about looking at things, and others are interactive, which means you can touch and play, do or taste.  Lots of museums are both.  Sometimes businesses have little museums inside of them, like Dave's Rock Shop in Evanston or Union Oyster House in Boston or even inside the Hard Rock Café chain across the country.  Some of my favorite museums are ones like these, ones I come across by accident.  I love surprise museums!  Once when I was in Montréal, Canada, my friend and I discovered a little museum in the basement of a church.  Someone women used dolls to create scenes of the life story of their friend, a famous nun. That was very cool!  I like these chances to learn something unexpected!

Whenever I go somewhere new, I seek to discover the collections that "live" there, whether they are in fancy museum palaces or tucked away in more modest museum homes.  There are always treasures.  For instance, I saw the real snowflake photos taken by Wilson Bentley that I read about in Snowflake Bentley at the Fairbanks Museum.  I saw the real cranes folded by Sadako that I read about in Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. And I saw the real stuffed animals that inspired Winnie the Pooh at the NewYork Public Library.  Museums and shared collections take things out of books and history and bring them to life!

The world is full, full, full of treasures and curiosities waiting to be shared with us in museums.  And since there are so, so many museums everywhere in the world, some of them, naturally, are far away.  That's okay.  You're a kid, you have your whole life ahead of you.  You can collect dreams of museums you will travel to and visit someday.  That's a good collection with which to start.

Most museums are closed during COVID-19.  The good news is, most have websites and some even have virtual tours and fun online activities.  Here are a few of the more unusual offerings!  Which ones appeal to you?

International Spy Museum

National Poo Museum

Bread and Puppet Museum

The House on the Rock

Dog Chapel

City Museum

UFO Museum

International Cryptozoology Museum

Eric Carle Picture Book Museum

Underwater Museum of Art

KattenKabinet (Cat Museum)

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum

American Visionary Art Museum

Roald Dahl Museum and Story Center

Cup of Noodles Museum

The Mutter Museum

Pencil Museum

Electric Ladyland Museum of Fluorescent Art

Corning Museum of Glass

National Mustard Museum

Ben and Jerry's Flavor Graveyard

Wizard of Oz Museum

Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum

Exploratorium

National Baseball Hall of Fame

MUSEUM CHALLENGE!
Can you do one or more of these activities?  
Share in the comments or send me an e-mail!

There are sooo many cool museums out there.  Research and find 3 museums that are not in this post!  Share them with the links in the comments section below so everyone can enjoy!

Make a "bucket list" of museums you would like to visit on this list or that you find elsewhere!

Share one of your favorite museum visits! What made it special?

Make your own museum with a collection you have in your home!  Create a display and descriptive labels, maybe even a welcome sign!  Take a picture or give a short video tour!

More museums and zoos are available if you scroll down on our Remote Learning Page. 
Happy virtual visiting!