Visit to the Bucks County Children's Museum in New Hope, PA

child playing with a paddle and PVC pipes to make music at the Bucks County Children's Museum

Date of Visit: Novembef 29, 2019

Children’s Museums have become a favorite spot for my young son, Jakbo, and I. He loves exploring and learning, and we’ve found several places that offer great hands-on learning.

One of those is the Bucks County Children’s Museum in New Hope.

At the time of our visit, my son had just turned two years old. He was old enough to want to explore every inch of the Museum, but not old enough to do it without a little help from his dad.

The Museum has several distinct areas that teach while encouraging imaginary play. One of those is the Hospital.

child playing with lifesized Operation game at the Bucks County Children's Museum

Here, kids can climb aboard a child-size ambulance playset, view “x-rays” on a screen, and play a game of life-sized operation. The latter was a bit of a struggle for my son, and I don’t think I want him operating on me anytime soon.

Jakob also loved the town square. One of his favorite activities was sorting the mail – or at least opening and closing the doors on all the post office boxes. He also ran up some pretty high totals on the cash register at the general store before we moved on to the next room.

child playing with a Lite Brite wall at the Bucks County Children's Museum

One of the signature attractions at the museum is the giant Lite-Brite wall. Found underneath in the Recycling Clubhouse in “Bucks County Country,” every kid wanted to take a turn moving the large pegs around to create new shapes and patterns of lights.

child climbing a small rock wall at the Bucks County Children's Museum

This was also the area where he found the rock wall. Jakob was able to get to the top of the small wall – with dad’s help of course.

In the “Airways to Waterways” area, Jakob had a lot of fun splashing, but he seemed more interested in taking to the sky than the water. He loved the hot air balloon simulator that put him behind the controls of a hot air balloon flying high over the Bucks County countryside.

child flying a hot air balloon simlulator at the Bucks County Children's Museum

The Museum offered plenty of other activities, as well, including a station where kids could put soft balls into a tube and watch how air forces the ball through.

child watching a ball float above a PVC pipe at the Bucks County Children's Museum

There’s also a fossil hunt and the factory – but the engineering games in this section didn’t really hold the little guy’s interest the way some of the more straightforward play areas did.

During our visit, Doylestown Health was sponsoring a special stuffed animal clinic. They took good care of poor Cordy Roy Fox after he “fell in the parking lot” according to my son’s made-up story.

In all, he had a great time. And with another year or two of growth, would have even more fun exploring every inch of the Museum.

When You Go

Capacity is limited so pre-purchasing tickets is strongly recommended.
The Museum is located right next to the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad, another kid-friendly activity in New Hope.
There is no food available at the Museum, but there are plenty of places to eat in New Hope before and after your visit.