Glazer Children's Museum in Tampa

Over the holidays, my friend Chris Collins came to visit for a couple of days while on her way to Key West. We were a bit worried at first because Charlotte, N.C. had several inches of snow which created a problem with flights. Luckily, airports were starting to open back up when she was flying through that evening.

We spent a day at the Glazer Children's Museum, a brand spankin' new kid's place in downtown Tampa. After seeing the prices of tickets (wow!!), I went with a year long membership since it was only a few dollars more. Now we'll be able to take the kids any time we want until the end of December.

The first floor has a huge (and I mean HUGE) water table area. It's similar to the one that we visit at the New Braunfels, TX children's museum, but here at the Glazer's museum, it's all indoors. I guess that works for the really hot spring, summer and fall that we experience here. No one wants heat exhausted little 2 year olds all over the place. Air conditioning is my friend!!







After experiencing the water tables, we moved on to the second floor. They have a great climbing contraption that looks like leaves. Kids are allowed to climb over, through and under all these giant leaves and clouds and pretend like they are water droplets. It explains evaporation, rain and dew. It's quite cool, but this afraid of height's momma was cringing everytime the girls got near the safety netting. Let's just say they didn't have any issues with being 30 something feet in the air with a net keeping them from falling. The climbing contraption actually goes from the top of the first floor all the way to the third floor. So there's a lot of climbing.




I forgot to mention the digging station on the first floor. I thought is was full of sand, and envisioned hours of trying to get dirty sand out of the kids socks, hair and eyes. To my amazement, it was not sand but instead rubber-y type pellets that look like sand. So cool!




The rest of the second floor had all the fun stuff that you see at most children's museums. There was a town which consisted of a vet hospital, a fire station, a grocery store, a restaurant and a creative area. Kids could dance on a stage and their image was plastered on several monitors on the wall. There was a Lego station, a building section which was great for boys, and a place called "My House, Your House."







We finished up by having a small snack in the cafe area. It's not a big cafe, but the Tampa Museum of Art is next door and they have a great restaurant inside. I took my cousin, Sara, there when they visited last summer. The children's museum has several camps and classes, so we'll have to take advantage of that when the time comes. Oh, and I looked it up, the climbing contraption is called "Water's Journey." Well, that makes sense and sounds better than contraption!

More photos below! And one of Taylor with Aunt Chris.