IDEA museum

This place would be awesome if the rules were enforced. We brought our toddler to play in Artville since it is for ages 4 and under. There were more kids over 4 than under! We had to basically hover over our son the entire time because big kids were running and throwing the blocks. The attendant kept saying «stop running», but the kids ignored her and nothing more was done. The other moms were mostly staring at their phones. It was very disappointing.

Great hands on museum for kids ages 1 – 8, or even big kids like Mommys and daddy’s. However, currently one of the exhibits is closed and it’s a third of services rendered. They should give a discount but they don’t. $ 8 a person is reasonable for all day fun!

Perfect place to get the little ones out of the house to explore art and learn facts that they can handle. The whole museum is hands on, so you don’t have to worry about them messing anything up. Arts and crafts throughout the museum.
Artville is a play area for little ones 4 and under. You do however need socks in there for both yourself and any little ones. It’s a great policy, to keep dirt and possible feces from the outside from getting dragged into that area, since there are crawlers.
It’s worth it to get their family memberships. Go every weekend and they might have special events going on.

Love this place! Their area for under 4’s is a great place to bring your toddler on a hot summer day and let them run around for a while. My kid is obsessed with the giant lightbrite. We have a membership and go weekly. Never had any issues.

Took my son here. He’s three. Definitely geared towards older kids or small babies. Won’t go back again until he is older.

Love this place for my kids 6 & under! If you have younger kids totally worth the visit & if you live close by you might want to consider a membership! So worth, especially during the hot summer months!

As an educator I was disappointed and as a parent I was even more disappointed. This place has little resources for children to be creative and was a waste of my drive and money. I would advise all charities to seize any donations and donate to real museums.

Our daughter that is 14 months loves coming here. Artville is a great area for her to run around and play in the different areas. We have gone during the week in the am and about 2:30. Both times weren’t super busy and felt she had a safe fun place to explore.

Tip: All adults and children need to wear socks. Half of the museum is designated for children 4 and younger (Artville) and socks (no shoes nor bare feet) must be worn in this part of the museum. There are lots of fun play things for small children in this area. They have story time at 11am on weekdays.
The exhibits in the other part of the museum are diverse, with the special exhibit being a train exhibit at this time. Outside of the building are several percussion musical instruments. There is a small gift shop and eating area. Everything is on a single floor.
Admission is $ 8 for anyone over 1 year old, but since I am a member of the ACM (Association of Children’s Museums) admission was half price ($ 4 per person) for the 6 people in our party.
Not the best children’s museum I have ever been to, but not the worst either.
If I were going to spend a few hours in a museum with children, I would probably continue on down the street a couple of blocks to the Arizona Natural History Museum. It has a larger diversity of exhibits and appeals to more age groups.

Along my journey exploring Mesa I found this family gem with younger children. The Idea Museum is the perfect activity for small children offering a creative outlet. Who doesn’t want to color, create and be inspired by science.

I love this place! They switch up their centers every so often so that the kids don’t get bored. I’ve brought a wide range of kids from as young as 5 months up to 6 years old. They always love it! It was very difficult the first few times to find it (we drove round and round …) but that’s not really their fault.
I’m editing this to add: The last few times I’ve went, I’ve needed to warm up a bottle for the baby. Unfortunately, they don’t have any way to warm up a bottle in their lunch area, though the ladies at the front desk are always willing to help. I usually just bring a large drinking cup, and they fill it with water and heat up the water in the microwave. This lets me set the bottle in the bowl to warm up the milk instead of having to put the bottle in the microwave where the ladies could overheat it.
They also recently changed their rules. Artville requires socks for kids AND adults. You can buy some from them, but just be prepared to bring socks or pay for socks to go into that half of the museum.

I appreciate the staff members responding receptively to my review, as well as another suggestion I made at a different instance. I think the planned extended hours will ease congestion and help toddlers who nap have some evening fun as well.
I wanted to write a quick update at the end of my one year membership there. I chose not to renew since it was too much of a drive for us from South Chandler, given my son still naps a good portion of their current open hours. I think they had a tremendous response to their groupon promotion, and they graciously honored the price for those of us who renewed as well.
The groupon however brought more crowds than they could handle. The first couple of months of the groupon redemption were terrible, long lines with 30 – 40 minutes wait just to be checked in. I made a suggestion to check in current members separately from the groupon holders who had to fill out long forms on their first visit. I never went back for a while after the first time I waited for 30 mins with an irate toddler though. When I did eventually go back, the crowds had significantly increased in the artville area, and the place was a mess. The volunteers had almost given up on putting things back in place. No instrument, puzzle block or food toy was where it should be.
Thankfully, by then we’d discovered the more spacious HUB area and my 2 year old toddler began exploring that with interest, so we still enjoyed their exhibits and craft areas. I didn’t see a benefit for us to buy a membership given the long drive and the lack of new stations while we were there.

This place is wonderful for toddlers and preschoolers on one side and older children on the other. This is an interactive — use your imagination kind of museum.
The only downside is they are in between exhibits so for three weeks a whole section is closed to bring in the next exhibit.

**Bring socks** Went here with my 2 ½ year old today for the first time. Everyone over age 1 costs $ 8. For the activities offered, this is a fair admission cost. There are two areas, one on either side of the admission counter-​The Hub area offers so many craft stations (painting, stamps, recycled creations, etc), although it can be challenging for the little ones to know where to start without any helpers nearby for instruction (as I have experienced at three other museums). A child 4 and up would likely fair better on this side and let their creative juices flow. The coolest part was this little Lego and super hero section behind/​to the right of the igloo. You can pose the action figures and make your own movie.
In the Artville section (where socks are required for all to enter) is a ton of fun for small kiddos. There is a «caged» off section for babies and crawlers, a train you can climb in and watch train tracks on a screen, a reading room, building room, kitchen area (with tons of toys) and in the middle tons of squishy blocks to build and climb on.
Artville is clearly the more popular section created for 0 – 4 year olds (it was PACKED at 9:30 am on a Friday). I can’t even imagine the chaos on weekends. It would be helpful if the person letting people in at the gate could only let a certain number of people in at a time to make the section manageable. Wish that some of the unnecessary space in the other area could be shared with Artville because there was no space to move, sit, etc. It would be great to have benches around the walls for parents (so we are out of the way) and a few workers in the mix to clean and mediate turns for sitting in train, entering kitchen and so on.
Everything was so busy that parents were stealing the kids chairs and sitting in the way while their child used an entire area or sat in the train for almost an hour. I agree with another reviewer who said that there are some children who are too old for the section pushing around the little kiddos. There was a 6-​year-​old boy who was following my son, taking any kitchen item he was playing with and knocking him down. What was his mom doing? Texting. Awesome. So many parents chatted with their friends while their children were unruly, stealing toys or bullying. Lame parenting is not the museum’s fault, obviously, but just be prepared for the chaos and many inconsiderate people. It certainly altered our experience.
Learned on Unilocal about the story time but it would have been nice to have been told about today’s events upon entry, especially when they knew it was our first time there. Overall, my kiddo had an okay experience. If your child does not have an aggressive personality, they may be overwhelmed like mine. However, good practice for school (and schoolyard bullies :-)). We will likely be back only during free events.

SO much to do for so many ages. You can spend hours here. Very hands on. Many different types I things, and sensory.

Would recommend for smaller kids. Toddlers and those under ⁸⁄₁₀. There are two main areas to choose from.
Turn right from the entrance and you get a more active/​social hands on play area where kids can play with inflatable toys, etc. with other kids, staff have story book read outs, some puppet show area and a small classroom art class for them. This area I believe is designed more to encourage social interaction between the children. Make note though that the activities are only done on certain days and times so ask before going.
Turn left and you get a place for activities where kids can sit down and make their own art and/​or view and play with children approved technologies individually. The good thing is that they can bring their artwork home. In addition, on some dates they also host special exhibits on this side. Sadly, when we went here the last two times there was none.
The place does not have a café. However, they do allow you to bring your own foods to eat in a designated area containing a vending machine.
Adults are required to pay admission fee in addition to 1 year olds. But ticket was much cheaper than phoenix children’s museum especially if you opt to buy the yearly membership.

Wonderful place for kids. My 17 months old enjoyed herself thoroughly. Will try to come back here again. Spent good 3 hours here.
Their last Free First Sunday is June 2015. So do plan to visit if you haven’t already.

I’m a parent of an energetic 1.5 year old kiddo. The first time I brought my son to the I.D.E.A. Museum was when he was 6 months old, and I liked the potential of the the place so much that I purchased a membership. I believe I was a bit hasty with that purchase now. In my experience, the pros and cons of the I.D.E.A. Museum are as follows:
Pros: convenience of location to those of us in the East Valley; fun activity/​craft stations in the main portion of the museum (although a bit too «advanced» for a younger toddler, so we just do what we can!); museum gallery themes are interesting, informative and often interactive; younger kids seem to have fun in the Artville section; the outdoor instruments and proximity to other downtown Mesa attractions are bonuses!
Cons: the young children’s section, Artville, while cute, is often full of children too old to be in there, who tend to trample on/​knock over the little ones; Artville has also unfortunately been pretty dirty every visit and I’m not sure that the toys are ever sanitized properly – especially in the padded baby area. I’m really not a germphobe, but, honestly, some of the toys are flat-​out crusted with gunk. My son has gotten sick (croup, HFM, colds) after every single visit we’ve made there – and now, after about a dozen times, I’ve finally stopped thinking this is a coincidence.
Unfortunately, there are so just many toddlers drooling/​chewing/​snotting/​sneezing/​etc. on things (as toddlers do), with no sanitization stations for parents and very few volunteers on hand to help clean things, that it seems inevitable that any little sickness could easily spread.
While I get that kids hanging around kids and getting sick is kinda par for the course, it never seems to happen after our visits to the Phoenix Children’s Museum, the Science Center, or local recreation/​community centers, where greater attention seems to be paid to consistent clean up. I’ll stick to those activities moving forward – the convenience of the I.D.E.A location just doesn’t outweigh having a sick child as a result of every visit.

I took my 4 and 6 yo daughters to IDEA today. They spent the entire day there, a couple hours in the child play area, then several hours learning about bugs in the bug exhibit. The museum definitely kept their interest; from making a farm garden plot in the play area, creating crafts, doing the «bee wriggle dance» in bee costumes, putting on a bug themed puppet show, to looking at a slew of preserved bug specimens, the museum offered much more than we could have anticipated. We would not hesitate to go again and will be recommending IDEA to all of our friends with kids.

Love this place! I’ve been here 3x in the past 5 days! My 3.5yr old and 2yr old love it!
At first I couldn’t understand the price being $ 8 for adults but realistically to maintain a place like this, you have to charge everyone. With all the deals out there (groupon, memberships, pogo pass, etc) asking $ 8 for adults isn’t a lot.
We purchased the membership for 4 and I think it’s well worth it! It’s a great place to visit on a rainy day, hot day, mosquito days, any day!
It’s clean, safe, and full of a variety of things to do for young children! I like the variety because it’s not like we have this much variety at home!

My yoga instructor quoted Albert Einstein in class today and it really resonated with me:
«Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.»
This got me thinking about the incredible imagination my son has… (and hopefully my daughter will have as well); I plan on encouraging both of their imaginations as they grow up by doing things like visiting the IDEA Museum!
I first heard about the IDEA Museum from a mommy friend a few months ago. I didn’t know at the time that this was formerly the Arizona Museum for Youth. They changed the name and had a grand reopening in February of this year.
We probably would have gone to check it out sooner if they were located closer to us and/​or had earlier hours on Sundays. (They don’t open until 12:00 on Sundays). Both my kids nap daily at 1pm, so that doesn’t work so well!
But on Saturday, with no major plans for the day, we woke up and I decided that we’d all head to the IDEA Museum. They open at 9 on Saturdays and we arrived closer to 9:30. From the moment we walked up, I knew the kids would love it…
It’s a colorful building with a private parking lot and some fun, interactive musical instruments on the way in. The $ 8 per person over one daily fee is worth it… there is so much to do for the kids! We didn’t get through it all, but my 1 and 2 year olds loved the play area, the light bright wall, the building blocks, the performance theater area, the puppets, the kitchen, and the books throughout. We also visited the current travel exhibit, which was really fun and educational.
The IDEA Museum’s mission is «to encourage visitors to experience their world differently through art, creativity and imagination.» I’d say they are succeeding at their mission for sure — we loved our visit and plan on returning; it really was a fabulous family activity. I just wish they opened earlier on Sundays!