DuPage Children’s Museum

• 301 N. Washington Street
• Naperville, IL 60540
• (630) 637-8000
• Website

One more day in the Chicago area.  J had Tuesday off, so we decided to just make the trip back to Michigan Tuesday morning since I didn’t have to be to work until second shift.

Since we were spending an extra day in Chicagoland, we needed to find something to do.  We have been wanting to check out the Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn, but they’re closed on Monday, so that was out.

J needed to make a run to Oak Brook to pick up some makeup at Mac Cosmetics inside the Oakbrook Center.  At that point, we were already half way to Naperville, so decided to hit up the children’s museum there.

The DuPage Children’s Museum is on Washington Street just to the north of Downtown Naperville.  The parking lot is actually shared with the Amtrak/Metra station across the street.  Part of the parking lot is numbered for pay parking while the majority of it is not an intended for the use of museum patrons.

Even from the outside, you can see the museum is huge.  We were really surprised at just how many cars there were in the parking lot on a Monday afternoon, but once inside, it didn’t seem nearly as crowded as we thought it was going to be.

Admission to the museum is $9.50 per person over the age of one with those over 60 getting a $1 discount.  The four of us cost $37 for a day of fun.  

The museum is three levels with a cafe in the basement level.  The main floor is by far the largest with three distinct sections including a large water/bubble area near the front of the museum.  L was pretty hesitant at first not really knowing what to do with herself.  She always seems to be attracted to furniture and just wants to climb instead of actually going for the interactive exhibits, but she eventually did work up some energy once we got her in to a room that looks like the Blue Man Group’s practice room.  Lots of things to beat and bang on including PVC pipes.

Her next big find was the giant Lite Brite’s, but here, she was more interested in helping the volunteer put the glow sticks away instead of creating.  There was a pile on the floor and she picked them one-by-one and handed them to the volunteer who was neatly stacking them back on the shelf.

We eventually made our way in to the Young Explorer’s section which is designed for kids her age.  She had a lot of fun chasing NaNa through a tunnel.

Whenever we’ve gone to the Curious Kids’ Discovery Zone in St. Joseph, she has loved the water tables, so we thought she’d have a little more fun at the Waterways and Bubbles exhibit.  We got a smock on her, but she wasn’t really in to splashing.  She was watching a lot of the other kids around the table, but didn’t get very involved.  She got a little more hands on at the bubble tables, but even then we were a little surprised at how quickly she got over it.

Once getting the smock off, we headed up the stairs to see what was on the second level of the museum.  Here, she sat and played with magnets, stacked blocks with mommy, and even got on a teter tot with NaNa.  We spent quite a bit of time on this second level because she seemed more at ease here with the stacking and knocking over of blocks.

After a half hour or so, L started to get a little tired and we had spent almost two hours at the museum, so we decided to call it a day.

The DuPage Children’s Museum is a wonderful opportunity for an educational day of fun.  L is still a little young to get all the knowledge out of the exhibits, but she had a blast just playing with the exhibits and we had a great time chasing her around this wonderful facility.