Marbles Kids Museum - Raleigh, North Carolina - Hours of Fun for the Entire Family

The Marbles Kids Museum is located at 201 East Hargett Street in Raleigh, North Carolina. The award-winning museum offers a learning experience through interactive play and larger-than-life IMAX adventures. The facility promotes children's imaginations, discovery, and learning. Children forget all about electronic gadgets and learn how to discover.

Adults can participate in learning with their children, as well as gather many great photo opportunities. Props, costumes, and settings are available to spice up any picture. Many of the stations have gated areas for the very young or to help corral the kids together. The stations are geared to encourage the children to stay awhile and explore.

Upon entering the facility, one of the first things presented is a life size chess set for the children to move around. Some of the kids are more dedicated to the traditional chess rules than others. In "Hideaway Grove," there is a pretend tree house, and in "Castaway Cove," there is a wonderful pirate ship with several levels, an anchor to raise and lower, costumes to wear, and afterwards, there is a station where you can draw your own treasure map, crumple it and tie it up in an authentic looking scroll. There is a music room with many simple percussion instruments for kids to pick up and just improvise. In "IdeaWorks," there are many work benches with genuine vises, saws, and other tools. Plenty of materials are available to build your own contraptions. This is an area where kids can stay all afternoon planning , designing, and building their own projects. Parents are able to get comfortable and watch the creativity of their children.

There is a very popular section of the museum where industries and individuals have donated materials like clean foam or styrofoam shapes, fabric scraps, buttons and trims, and much much more. Kids can help themselves to bins full of supplies and create to their heart's content. Children may choose to leave their creations at the museum on display or take them home.

For the littlest children there is an aquarium that offers a short person viewing height, huge soft blocks in various shapes to crawl through or ride on, books and toys that are appropriate to each station's theme, and giant wire coated mazes with marbles to chase each other to the finish.

In addition to the permanent exhibits, Marbles also hosts a wide variety of temporary exhibits, special events, workshops, and camps. Marbles camps are for kids' ages 3-12 and are held year-round, since many of Wake County 's schools run on an alternative, year-round, calendar.

Admission to Marbles is $5.00 for everyone who's more than one year old. Admission to Marbles IMAX Theater is not included in the museum admission price. IMAX tickets cost between $6.50 and $11.95 per movie, depending on the age of the visitor and which IMAX movie you want to see.

Marbles is open Tuesday-Saturday from 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 12:00-5:00 p.m. Marbles Kids Museum is closed on Mondays.