The Magic House

What do an old Victorian mansion, mazes, science experiments, math and music have in common? They all come together in wondrous fun at the Magic House, a delightful hands-on learning center and playground designed to entertain and educate kids of all ages. Opened in St. Louis in 1975, the Magic House became the region’s first hands-on museum encouraging interaction and creativity.

Over the years, the facility has greatly expanded to include many new exhibits, and has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors both young and old. Currently spanning 50,000 square feet, the Magic House contains hundreds of engaging exhibits. The A Little Bit of Magic area allows visitors to explore a mirror maze, perform a puppet show and find a secret mouse house. The Children’s Village lets kids star in their own TV newscast, construct a firehouse and catch fish in a pond. Brave guests can make their hair stand on end when they touch the electrostatic generator, or balance a ball on air in the Air Power exhibit. Math becomes fun at Math Path, where kids can play with a giant calculator, race a car they design or guess the number of candies in a huge candy box.

The Expericenter lets visitors create a masterpiece in the Art Studio, tinker in the Workshop and run experiments in the Science Lab.Waterworks offers a liquid playground where kids can float a boat and play in a water arcade. The Bubble Room creates giant bubbles, and even musical bubbles from a special playable organ. Kids can pretend they’re Jack in his famous three-story climbable beanstalk, then crawl through a service pipe and design architectural plans in the Kids’ Construction Zone. There are oversized instruments and musical chairs to play in the Music Play-Play Music area, and poems and haikus to write and hang up in Poet Tree Hall.

A mini replica of the Oval Office, the Star-Spangled Center lets visitors sit behind a Presidential desk, sign a Declaration of Independence, and even vote in a working electronic voting booth. Little mechanics will love the Super Service Center, where they can rotate tires, replace mufflers and even change air filters and license plates. In the Sunshine Classroom, kids can tend a garden patch, grow vegetable soup and even crawl through an underground earthworm tunnel. With so many exhibits geared towards entertainment and education, the Magic House is a great destination for visitors of all ages. It’s a little bit of learning, laughter and magic, all rolled into one.

- by D.J. Siegel, Saint Louis Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)