Cleveland Attractions

The Children’s Museum of Cleveland (University Circle)

March 8, 2011 By Paula Atwell Leave a Comment

If you have children 8 years old and under, one of the best places to take them in Cleveland is The Children’s Museum of Cleveland in University Circle.

The Children’s Museum is literally a museum for children. Exhibits are interactive and meant to be touched, and are child sized. Activities are meant to catch a child’s attention, and give them the opportunity to freely explore the museum and learn. Over the past two decades, the Children’s Museum has become the only cultural and educational resource completely dedicated to young children in the Cleveland area.

The Children’s Museum is dedicated to the overall development of children, ages birth to eight years, through family learning. Now In its 30th year of operation, the Children’s Museum continues to provide exhibits and programs that enhance child development by providing a place where young children can discover the world and learn through play.

The Children’s Museum of Cleveland Exhibits

Splish! Splash!

This water exhibit is a lot of fun for children, but make sure you take extra clothes or a towel. The exhibit teaches children about water transportation, weather and the earth’s water systems. It features a two-story climbing structure that is designed to teach basic principles of the water cycle.

Bridges to Our Community

The Bridges to our Community exhibit features multiple areas that teach children all about Cleveland’s rich diversity. Children can start and end their day in our community at the 2-story house. Children will enjoy pushing their own shopping cart and checking out groceries in the store after completing their banking at the teller counter, complete with play money. They can continue their journey as they drive a real RTA bus, check in at the airline ticket counter, or pump their own gas at the gas station before driving home in the “Safe Ride for All Kids” car. In addition, children can learn about a visit to the doctors or about welcoming an addition to the family in the replica Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.

Big Red Barn

Inspired by Margaret Wise Brown’s beloved children’s classic of the same name, Big Red Barn is designed specifically for children ages birth-4 yrs. It is comprised of several distinct areas, all with hands-on activities that encourage play. There is a two-story barn, working silo, and apple orchard.

The Children’s Museum of Cleveland is one museum that your children will want to return to over and over. Not a place to miss! For more information about the Children’s Museum of Cleveland, call 216-791-7114.

Image credit: Children’s Museum of Cleveland

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The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage (Beachwood)

February 27, 2011 By Paula Atwell Leave a Comment

On the east side of Cleveland, in the suburb of Beachwood, OH, you can find a very unique local attraction, The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage. Cleveland has had a very vibrant Jewish community that has had a large impact on the global community, and this museum that was opened in 2005, was designed with one mission, to build bridges of tolerance and understanding by sharing Jewish heritage through the lens of the American experience.

Because while it is true that some of the Jewish American experience is unique to the Jewish community, much of the history is common from religion to religion, race to race, ethnic group to ethnic group. The stories of individuals and families, both past and present, come to life through state of the art exhibitions, interactives and films, oral histories, photographs and artifacts.

While anyone who is of Jewish descent will identify with the exhibits in The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, what Jews experienced and continue to experience today is really a mirror of the experience of many immigrants to American soil. You can follow the immigrants through the generations of leaving their original homes behind, moving to a new country, and dealing with the changes in world history through local eyes of Cleveland immigrants. While the focus is on Jewish heritage, the experience is a much wider view of the world as a whole.

In addition to the history of Jewish immigrants to Cleveland, there are other exhibits that revolve around the promotion of diversity and tolerance in the world today. One of the most exciting projects that has come from the Maltz Museum is the Stop the Hate contest which is a $100,000 essay contest for middle school and high school students. The inspiration for the Stop the Hate contest comes from the reflections of leaders throughout history on the results of hatred and intolerance. Their words serve as inspiration for thinking about what you can do to stop hatred and discrimination.

In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

For more information on tours and hours, call 216-593-0575.

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The Christmas Story House and Museum (Tremont)

February 26, 2011 By Paula Atwell Leave a Comment

A Christmas Story House and Museum (Cleveland)

Are you a fan of the holiday movie A Christmas Story? Did you know that it was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio?

The house that A Christmas Story was filmed in resides in the city of Cleveland, Ohio in the Tremont neighborhood. The house is open for tours year round, and there is also A Christmas Story House Museum and gift shop adjacent to the house, which features original props, costumes and memorabilia from the film, as well as hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes photos. Among the props and costumes are the toys from the Higbee’s window, Randy’s snowsuit and zeppelin, the chalkboard from Miss Shields’ classroom and the family car.

A Christmas Story was filmed and released in 1983, and has become a cult classic with a large following of fans and collectors of the movie memorabilia. If you are not familiar with A Christmas Story, the movie takes place in 1940′s Indiana, where nine-year-old Ralphie longs for the ideal Christmas gift, a 200-Shot, Range-Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.” But when gruff dad and doting mom, and even a stressed-out Santa quote the usual BB gun warning, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” Ralphie mounts a full-scale, hint dropping campaign that is a sly combination of innocence and calculation. The movie is not only about Christmas and BB guns, but also about childhood and a semi-dysfunctional family life.

One of the most famous pieces of movie memorabilia from A Christmas Story, is the Leg Lamp. The movie actually had two leg lamp props that were used while the filming went on and both were broken. However, replicas of the famous Leg Lamp can be purchased in several sizes to decorate your home or office.