Look around you, what is the first thing you notice? Maybe a wall or a door? Perhaps pipes and beams? All of these items were put together by masterful engineers! Come join us at WOW! Children’s Museum to create your own feats of engineering! We’ll use our giant Rigamajig set and a team of friends to create different structures.

Students will:

Explore gears, pulleys, and planks to create a structure
Work in teams to explore their creativity
Practice fine and gross motor movements

Identify the characteristics of solids and liquids. Make your own slime to keep, and use it to explain the differences between a liquid and a solid. In the spirit of inquiry, the final product is intentionally ambiguous and encourages students to ask questions instead of just providing a “right answer”: their slime may behave as a liquid, a solid, or both depending on how aggressively they mixed it and how we test its behavior. Activities complement and extend the topics covered in the FOSS Solids and Liquids Unit.

Students will:

Explore the physical science concepts behind two states of matter: liquid and solid.
Manipulate liquid and solid objects.
Create slime and determine whether it is liquid or solid.

What do all living things need to grow? Water, sun, and food of course! But there are other things living things need. Like kindness, generosity, and friendship. We’ll practice these concepts together by growing a friendship flower. Each child will receive their own kit of seeds, soil, and planter and as a class we’ll give our seedlings the things they need to grow. Students will also learn about body language and communication by performing a Bee Waggle Dance. We will nurture our seeds to help them grow, just as we nurture our friends to help them grow too!

Students will:

Practice kindness and empathy
Practice the concept that all living things have needs for their successful growth
Plant seeds
Practice body language and communication

Little learners practice counting and comparing. Hold Spike, our baby Stegosaurus, compare your foot to big and small dinosaur tracks, and pack a dinosaur’s lunchbox!

Students will:

Explore math concepts such as counting, comparison, and measurement with standard and non-standard units.
Explore life science concepts such as characteristics of herbivores and carnivores.
Manipulate objects to count, compare, and measure them.

Investigate the magical push and pull of magnetism in this station-based class that complements our Magnet exhibit. WOW! is grateful for support from LEAP into Science, a science and literacy program developed by The Franklin Institute and the Free Library of Philadelphia with support from the National Science Foundation.

Students will:

Explore the physical science concept of magnetism.
Manipulate magnets and use them to determine whether other items are, or are not, attracted to magnets.

Explore the world of things that spin, roll, balance, and move. Activities complement and extend the topics covered in the FOSS Balance and Motion Unit.

Students will:

Explore physical science concepts of balance and motion.
Manipulate objects by making them spin, roll, balance, and move.

WOW! Field Trips give local school children an opportunity to learn through play and explore the world around them in a fun, unique, and educational environment. Field trips include two hours of self guided explorations of the Museum. During a field trip, children can delve into hands-on exhibits about a variety of subjects, including STEM, art, music, dance, theater, health and practical life. Adult supervisors are encouraged to actively engage and play with children at each exhibit space. We are pleased to offer free adult admission for accompanying adult supervisors and chaperones. Large field trip groups (40 students or more) are welcome to book a field trip visit on a Monday when we are closed to the public.

Let us bring CSI to your classroom! Choose one, two, or three Forensic Science topics to share with your students. When you book all three topics, each child will receive a forensic journal in which they can record their findings.

Classes are 1.5 hours and cost $200 each. Cost for all three classes is $500.

DNA: Unlock your body’s code and discover how Forensic Scientists use genomes to catch criminals! We will extract DNA from peas and from our own bodies. You will even be able to take the DNA home with you!

Fingerprinting and Entomology: Investigate your unique fingerprints and learn how to lift them from a crime scene. Did you ever wonder how insects could help solve murders? Discover how by studying the life cycle of flies.

Blood Typing: Your body contains incredible things, including one of eight blood types. Find out how those blood types can help eliminate suspects by testing different types of blood!

Students will:

Extract DNA from peas, extract DNA from their own cheek cells, and examine and match DNA sequences
Take their own fingerprints; determine time of death using insect larvae; explore life sciences through the life cycles of flies
Work in teams; use process-of-elimination to identify a suspect; explore life sciences through blood typing

Investigate the lives and adaptations of nocturnal animals by studying the ways they move and their eating habits. Then check out our Forest of Light exhibit to learn more about the habitats of these animals.

Students will:

Dissect an owl pellet to find out what owls eat
Play an echolocation game to discover how bats find their prey at night
Create an illuminated firefly using circuits

Build your world with shapes and Build It WOW! Creativity, collaboration, and engineering skills are unleashed in this hands-on program. Work in teams to use plastic building bricks and robot toys to create a robotic structure that moves. This program is best for students who already know each other and work well together.

Students will:

Explore human relationship concepts such as collaboration.
Manipulate battery-powered, magnetic components to build a temporary structure.

What do all living things need to grow? Water, sun, and food of course! But there are other things living things need. Like kindness, generosity, and friendship. We’ll practice these concepts together by growing a friendship flower. Each child will receive their own kit of seeds, soil, and planter and as a class we’ll give our seedlings the things they need to grow. Students will also learn about body language and communication by performing a Bee Waggle Dance. We will nurture our seeds to help them grow, just as we nurture our friends to help them grow too!

Students will:

Practice kindness and empathy
Practice the concept that all living things have needs for their successful growth
Plant seeds
Practice body language and communication

Little learners practice counting and comparing. Hold Spike, our baby Stegosaurus. Compare your foot to big and small dinosaur tracks. Pack a dinosaur’s lunchbox and make a dinosaur fossil craft!

Students will:

Explore math concepts such as counting, comparison, and measurement with standard and non-standard units.
Explore life science concepts such as characteristics of herbivores and carnivores.
Manipulate objects to count, compare, and measure them.

Calling all problem solvers! Be an inventor as you observe, research, design, build, and test your own creation to take home. WOW! is grateful for support from LEAP into Science, a science and literacy program developed by The Franklin Institute and the Free Library of Philadelphia with support from the National Science Foundation.

Students will:

Explore the physical science and engineering concepts related to solving a problem.
Manipulate and attach assorted materials.
Create a device to reach an object that is above their reach.

Investigate sound science by hearing, feeling, and even seeing vibrations. Create and try out your own sound maker to keep. WOW! is grateful for support from LEAP into Science, a science and literacy program developed by The Franklin Institute and the Free Library of Philadelphia with support from the National Science Foundation.
Students will:

This program starts with story time to introduce vocabulary, then children explore centers in small groups.
Explore the physical science concept of sound.
Manipulate objects that make different sounds.
Create a sound maker and determine how it vibrates to make sound.

Investigate the magical push and pull of magnetism in this station-based class. Create a magnet craft to try out in class and take home. WOW! credits part of this class to NanoDays, a nationwide festival of educational programs about nanoscale science and technology organized by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network with funding from the National Science Foundation.

Students will:

Explore the physical science concept of magnetism.
Manipulate magnets and use them to determine whether other items are, or are not, attracted to magnets.
Create a magnet craft to try out in class and take home.

Infants and toddlers explore the world using their senses. In this child-led activity, infants and toddlers will have the opportunity to freely explore their touch, smell, visual, and auditory senses through our carefully thought-out and planned sensory stations. We use items like soundbite buttons, memory foam, and colored flashlights to entice and engage different sensorial interactions.

Students will:

Engage with adults and peers
Use the senses to examine objects
Use perceptual information