Glazer Children’s Museum
Kids will love this fun spot in Tampa that feels more like a playground than a museum. Children can become captains or dig for buried treasure at the CruiseShip exhibit, unleash their inner artist at Artsmart, become a master chef at Pizza Place or innovate in the incredible robotics lab.
Miami Children’s Museum
Exhibits include the Construction Zone, where kids can use the crane and bulldozer, or the Bank exhibit, where a six-foot piggy bank and interactive screens make learning about earnings, savings and money fun. On the second Saturday of every month, sensory-friendly experiences allow kids with autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorders, and global developmental delays to enjoy the museum, too.
Orlando Science Center
DinoDigs takes visitors back to the prehistoric era, while the Kinetic Zone helps children learn about electricity and gravity. At the new Flight Lab, kids will delight in the virtual experience of flying from the cockpit using Oculus Rift head-mounted display units.
Explorations V Children’s Museum
The “V” in this Lakeland museum’s name – the Roman numeral for five – represents the idea that children use all five senses to learn. Kids will love the dragon, made entirely of toys, looming over the entryway. Plus, they can practice being a newscaster, extinguish a simulated fire or become a producer in the Music & Sound Studio.
Imaginarium Science Center
Kids can get truly hands-on experiences at the aptly named Hands-On Hall and at exhibits like the Sea to See Touch Tanks. Get up close with aquatic animals like horseshoe crabs and rays. Dive into the past using technology of the future at the Virtual-Reality Exhibit where visitors can immerse themselves in the original fort of Fort Myers and see where the soldiers carried out daily activities.
Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee
You can’t actually blast off into space yet, but families can get the next-best thing here. Perfect for multi-gen holidays and trips with multiple families (they require nine people per simulation), the Space Mission Simulator allows team members to work as scientists and engineers on space missions. The missions can be tailored by age range to suit everyone from adults all the way down to little explorers as young as 3.