Children's Museum Oro Valley at Tohono Chul

This is a fun mostly outdoor children's museum. Very cool and fun place for the kids! We can while visiting in town, and we don't have anything like this. Although most of it is outside, it is covered by plants or a canopy. You do have to pay at the main entrance of the gardens to get to it. The hours seem limited so check before you go. There is a bathroom right by the play area and small indoor play area that included a faux shopping area, slide, books, and a few other things. Outdoor area included a mud/sand table, water table, tractor, painting, craft area, reading books, and a few other things. Keep walking throughout the gardens and you will find a raised "stream". The kids had fun putting boats in this over and over.

This was a great outing for our family! We brought our three year old and were pleasantly surprised by the variety of engaging activities for her. The museum was at the back of the park, but we were given a map, and there were little fun icons on signs pointing us in the right direction.

The museum building is small but has age appropriate activities. The outside space is shaded and fun to explore. We have attended story time twice and both times it was lacking. The reader was not animated and read in such a monotone the kids were leaving the group. The books were not age appropriate with too many words and small pictures. Since I am an early childhood educator and pediatric occupational therapist I would not recommend this story time.

It was a very nice experience. I think it is a great place for state visitors to checkout. As a native, it wasn't impressive in the sense of discovering new wildlife/nature we haven't seen, however the setup and layout is really nice and the performances (open air concert style) was very enjoyable.

The kids, 5 and 8, had a great time this morning! They ran from station to station outside sending a good amount of time at each. Lots of hands-on activities and crafts. Inside they played at the "market" and loved catching the scarves blowing through the tubes. They and the others had a blast!