Top 5 Museums To Visit In London Ontario
Museums for Children in London, ON. If you are looking for interactive learning opportunities for your family, London has you covered. London has a number of kid-friendly museums designed to entertain and educate.
London Children’s Museum
One of Dr. Janna’s favourite places to visit when she was a little girl was the London Children’s Museum. This museum was founded in 1975 and is documented as one of the first Children’s museums in Canada. Presently, it receives more than 100,000 visitors each year. This child-centred environment has themed rooms that facilitate interactive learning and exploration. In the Dinosaur gallery, kids can dress up like a dinosaur and dig for dinosaur bones. On the Street Where You Live gallery, kids can drive kiddie cars and go down the manhole cover to the world beneath the city. Kids experience life in the Arctic as they crawl through the igloo and end up in a modern Inuit household. Kids can step back in time as they enter the one room schoolhouse, where they can get out their slate and practice their lessons. When school’s out they can head home for an imaginary meal cooked over a woodstove or play a game of checkers. There are more exhibits, with some changing every season, and a variety of activities, demonstrations and experiments offered on a daily basis.
Museum London
Museum London is proud to have one of Canada's most important art collections, and one of the most significant historical artifact collections in Ontario. The art collection has more than 5,000 regional and Canadian works and 45,000 artifacts reflect the history of the City of London as an important regional urban centre in Southwestern Ontario.
Museum London offers world-class exhibitions and galleries with guided tours, hands-on art-making and stimulating historical programs. The Imagination Station is a free drop-in program where families have the opportunity to learn about art and explore their own creativity.
Museum London was established in 1940. It originally operated in the London Public Library. In 1980 architect Raymond Moriyama was commissioned to design its current home at the forks of the Thames River in downtown London, Ontario. In 1989, the London Regional Art Gallery merged with the London Historical Museum, to create Museum London.
Fanshawe Pioneer Village
London Ontario’s Fanshawe Pioneer Village is marketing itself as “Big on History and Big on Fun.” And that’s a great way to describe this living museum of bygone days. Fanshawe Pioneer Village presents the story of rural communities in the area from 1820 to 1920 and the story of the founding and development of the City of London up to 1840. At the village, there is always something cooking at the old family home. Visitors can watch the forge in action while a blacksmith crafts items for sale at the General store. Your child can visit the farm animals, or take in a lesson at the one room school house. On special event days, you can take a ride around the village on a tractor or horse-drawn wagon. Enjoy a lunch at the Pioneer Village Cafe for a delicious homemade soups, salads, breads and fresh baking all made with local produce.
For more information about hours of operation, rates and special events check out the website.
The Museum of Ontario Archaeology
The Museum of Ontario Archaeology is dedicated to the study of human culture over 11,000 years of Ontario’s history. On the site is a reconstructed 16th century Neutral Iroquoian village. You can take a self-guided tour through over 11, 000 years of history of the First Nations peoples in Ontario, then head outside to the “Lawson Site” located next to the museum. Enter the Palisade and wind around a maze to discover a reconstructed longhouse and the Medicine Wheel garden. Finish your walk with a hike through a forest covering un-excavated areas of the site.
This museum offers individual and group educational programming, host birthday parties and offer March Break and summer camps for budding archaeologists. As well, it celebrates four special events every year: the Harvest Festival and Pow Wow in September, an Art and Craft Sale featuring traditional First Nations’ art and crafts in late November, Snowsnake or Winter Festival on Family Day in February and Wilfrid Jury Archaeology Day in late July.
For more information visit their website.
The Ska-Nah-Doht Village Museum
Your children will have fun discovering and exploring a recreated longhouse village of 1000 years ago at the Ska-Nah-Doht Village Museum. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my friends and I would pile into my mom’s van with our dolls and other toys and head off to this Indian village. We would run through the maze entry into the village and play house in the longhouse. We would make our “food” over the fire pit, visit the doctor at the “Shaman’s” house, harvest food from our outdoor garden. You can learn more at the interpretation centre and continue to explore the area on the boardwalks over the wetlands, through the hiking trails and over the suspension bridge while watching the area’s wildlife. This village is located at the Longwoods Road Conservation Area.