Please Touch Museum

About

Please Touch Museum is Philadelphia's dedicated children's museum, housed since 2008 in Memorial Hall — a stunning National Historic Landmark built for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Fairmount Park. The museum is designed from the ground up for young children, with every exhibit calibrated to invite physical engagement, imaginative play, and active learning through doing. The museum's permanent exhibits span a range of developmental themes: a supermarket where children manage transactions and stock shelves, a construction zone with real tools and building materials, a water-play area, a Wonderland forest based on Lewis Carroll's Alice stories, and a vintage carousel operating inside the building. Each environment is built at child scale and encourages the kind of messy, physical, embodied exploration that research consistently identifies as foundational to early learning. For families with young children, Please Touch provides a safe, stimulating environment where exploration is actively encouraged rather than managed. The museum's position inside one of Philadelphia's great public parks adds an outdoor dimension to any visit. As an ACM Reciprocal Network member, members of participating children's museums receive 50% off general admission for up to six people. The museum is located in West Philadelphia, accessible from the center city via public transit.

Subject Areas

Best For