So I’ll be very honest. I have heard about this place for years and it looked very boring especially for my kids to come to. Their website has a few photos online and those photos look kinda “just ok” to me. But anytime I looked online for things to do with kids in Knoxville I kept seeing this place so I googled it more and finally found a blog post with more detail, so after reading it. I realized how cool this place was and took my kids.
We drove an hour to get there and arrived at 10:30am. They opened at 10am. When we walked in, they gave us a map and we paid for the admission the prices were $10 for an adult and $8 for kids. She told us where to begin and we started slowly walking through it. My kids were not to impressed at first and kept looking to see what was next. We are used to more of a play type museums when we go to Children’s Museum but they slowly started to warm up to it.
So for reference this use to be an old Elementary School and it is now the Oak Ridge Children’s Museum. This place is huge and there are 25+ rooms in the school not counting the hallways that are full of information.
When you walk in, you can arrive in the office/ gift shop room and then can start the tour from anywhere but we started at the International Gallery. We saw a huge Polar Bear, as well as lots of things from different cultures, such as the clothes they wore, what they made and a little bit about each country. My kids were hurrying to go to the next room, but they are just 6 and 3 so I knew they wouldn’t be into that stuff yet.
As we kept walking we then went into the Heritage Room which had some cabins built and inside you could see a home set up as and how they lived back then.
Then we came upon a little room called “Granny’s Attic” It was a cute old timey room with some clothes to try on or play with some items in there. We didn’t stay in there to long but the kids liked it.
Our next room was the Healthy Living a Country Life room. It was split up into different sections and they talked about heathy eating and where our food comes from as well as some exercises to do to stay healthy. This is where the kids started to have fun.
As we walked down the hallway it was even filled with information. It was called the Nature Walk and they had some taxidermy animals of different kinds of animals and information on them
The Bird Room was a fun room, They loved climbing up on the top deck, seeing birds nests and all the birds everywhere. My kids also loved going up and down the ladder from the top deck down below.
We then walked into the Mars Room. The kids became very excited to see a space ship. They climbed up in it and it would make sounds as if it would blast off and it had a big climbing area as if it was mars. The room was pretty cool. They had some books in a basket about Mars and a doom buggy as well as an astronaut. We played in there for maybe 20 mins.
This place was huge and we were excited to see what was next in each room. We came upon the Coal Miners room which show what all coal miners do, what it may look like under ground, the different rocks and its purpose.
Going down the hallway you can read all about Oak Ridge and how they were the secret city and information on that. I didn’t get to read it but it looked interesting.
The last room before we took a break was the old 1930s School Room. They had old desks, piano, chalk board, desk and podium and a large doll house in the back. Any kid loves to play pretend school. I think we played in there for at least 30 mins. The place wasn’t that busy and we very rarely had anyone come in a room when we were in there. It is so big that if someone is in that room, we would just come back when it was empty.
We have been at the Museum for almost 2 hours so we stopped and went outside to grab our picnic lunch and ate outside under the pavilion and the kids played on the playground. The playground was very nice and was handicap accessible. If you happen to go and didn’t bring a snack. They did offer snacks at the gym area that were $1 and there were seating next to the gym as well if it was to cold to go outside.
We went back at it after we took a break and came upon the Ed Westcott Room. I didn’t get to read much into this but I believe it had to do with the secret city. Sorry, I have kids I had to keep up with.
Then the hall split and we went straight to hit a few of those rooms so we then went to the puppet show room and of course any kid loves playing puppets. They had a huge set up with puppets to use but it also was showing all kinds of puppets that a lady by the name of Anna Cebrat, a local librarian who loved to make life sized puppets and was a professional storyteller.
On your way to the final room, the hall way is filled with lots of Girl Scout Dolls and information about how the 1973 Girl Scout Troop was the first part of the Children’s Museum.
The final room in the hallway was the TVA Waterworks room that showed how Dams worked, how they make energy and also had a huge tugboat for kids to play on. This will be everyone’s favorite room and thankfully, they did have some paper towels to clean up the messes and water from the kids.
We then went back to where the hall way split and went down the final wing of the school and came upon a few rooms that were closed due to classes or camps so we didn’t get to see the Sea Life, Imagination Room nor the Science/ Crafts area.
The Preschool Room was filled with desks, toys, dolls and all things kids to just play pretend with
Once we got closer to the dollhouse room, we started to see all kinds of old doll houses and dolls in the hallway with information and then my daughter’s eyes got so big and she was so excited to see a life size doll house to play in. It has an upstairs and downstairs that they adored and played in. The kitchen and living room was so adorable and the upstairs had a HUGE real dollhouse as well as a baby crib and pretend bathroom. As they were playing, I looked at all the decades of toys from the 1900s all the way to 1990s. They had the most popular games, Barbies, and toys from that decade.
After we finally got out of that room, we explored the Rainforest Room, They had scavenger hunts on the walls to find different animals, it had the rainforest sounds of animals and rain as well as so much greenery. Attached to the room was an explorer’s class where they have lots of information about the real rainforest as a video playing and puzzles to enjoy.
OK! We are finally close to being done. Up the steps is the massive train room. They had a train table, super fun model trains that run all around this huge pretend train. The kids could have stayed there for a long time, but we so enjoyed the area.
In conclusion…
My kids favorite rooms were the Healthy Living, Bird Room, Mars Room, The 1930s Old School Room, Puppet Show Room, TVS Waterworks, Dollhouse Room, Pre School, Rainforest and Train Room.
We stayed there for a little over 4 hours and took a break for lunch
The school is handicap accessible
This place was lots of fun and if it is your first time, you will spend the most time your first time, then the next few times maybe not as long. I personally would take my kids here maybe once a year because they will get burnt out going to much, but each time you go you will see new things you missed the first time.
This museum has been there for over 30+ years. It isn’t like a high end museum but super fun and nostalgic.
I would recommend this for elementary school kids but older kids would enjoy it as well as there is lots of information to read and learn.
They are closed on Mondays and I most major holidays as well as following the Oak Ridge School System for closings so be sure to check their Facebook and Website to be sure they are open.
The Outside Train area and model train building room is open the 3rd Sunday of the month and the Museum is only open from 1-4
I hope the blog post helps you understand the place better and give you more of an idea if this place would be a good fit to go to with your friends or family.
They do offer memberships as well as teacher discounts with a teach ID.
Below is a map of the whole area.
