 Exhibits at Exploration Station®...a children's museum are ever changing and evolving. Some exhibits are seasonal while others are more permanent.
By changing and rotating exhibits, Exploration Station gives children and adults a chance to re-discover the museum and experience new exhibits to explore each season. |
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Exploration Station® Exhibits
Upon entering Exploration Station®...a children's museum, the famous and unique two-story medieval castle will immediately enchant visitors. Inside the multi-level castle, visitors can experience medieval life in a number of ways. They can dress up in royal garb in the dressing room, hide out in the dungeon, explore secret tunnels and keep an eye out for royal enemies by using real periscopes that view out over the Perry Farm Park.
This attraction was made possible by a grant from Ronald McDonald House Children's Charities.
In the Medieval Castle Room, children can...
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ILLUMINATION
“Illumination” is a light room featuring science and mathematical activities over multiple light surfaces featuring unique tables and a light writer wall.
The Color mixing table and transparent color blocks allows children to blend colors in various ways to see how color affects light as it travels through transparent objects.
The Light writers will allow children and adults the opportunity to create unending works of art.
This room was made possible by People’s Bank of Kankakee.
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Alex's Attic
This dress up area has a wonderful nostalgic feel to it. It is almost like wondering up to your grandmother or grandfathers old attic to find a treasure trove of dress up clothes and other fun accessories for both boys and girls. Dress-up clothes include dresses, suit jackets, shoes, hand bags, gloves and assorted play jewelry.
The exhibit has been made possible by Eagle Scout Austin Cote.
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Visitors are headed for first-class fun at the airplane exhibit. This attraction features a cross-section of an airplane, equipped with life-sized seats, a flight attendant's station, flight simulation and a make-believe cockpit.
This exhibit was recently renovated by Alex Zariff for a Boy Scout Eagle Project. This exhibit was sponsored in part by Continental Airlines.
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& Jet Plane
The Jet Plane exhibit features a jet cockpit that children can climb into and let their imaginations soar.
The Jet Plane seats up to two children at a time, has a cock pit with launch buttons, and a joy stick. And yes, adults can fit inside it too!
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Exploratown
In the fall of 2009 the Exploration Front Lobby area was renovated to include some excite new exhibit areas. Collectively called Exploratown, the new exhibits included in these renovations are the Shop-A-Lot Market, Invention Center, Clock Tower Coat Room, Lickety Split Soda Shop & Diner, Wreck Resort Car Care Center, Train Station Front Desk, Postal Office, Safety Center and the kid's sized My House.
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Exploration Station® Train Themed Front Desk
Kids love to play in our new train at the front desk. (and so do the staff!)
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Safety Place
Children can come to the rescue at the Safety Place Exhibit. Here they'll find a child's sized fire truck equipped with fire hose, steering wheel and radio equipment. Our young heroes can put on real child-sized firefighters' and police gear, and act out their own rescue.
The Safety Place Exhibit was made possible by the Bradley Fire Department and Bourbonnais Fire Protection District.
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Back by popular demand and better than ever. The Shop-a-Lot Market has realistic foods that children can sort and classify as well as collect in shopping carts or reusable canvas shopping bags. The exhibit features a bakery section, produce, dry and canned goods, dairy section and new floral department. The market also features a display deli section and a cash register.
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Lickety Split Soda Shop & Diner
It's time to rock around the clock at the Lickety Split Soda Shop and Diner.
Serve up some pretend ice cream sundaes in this 50s style soda shop made possible in part by Eagle Scout Scott Winterringer. Make pretend sundaes, floats, burgers and other fun diner foods and then serve them up to your friends and family.
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INVENTION CENTER
Walk through the new Exploratown clock tower to find this new exhibit designed to teach children about building and using their imagination.
Children will get to use tools, learn to build and connect gears and solve puzzles. The popular gravity wall has also been moved to the invention center where children can learn to build slopes and ramps.
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Postal Office
Come rain or shine, you can depend on the United States Postal Service for dependable mail delivery! At this exhibit, children will learn how a post office works. They can dress like a postal worker, address and process envelopes, package express mail items, and deliver mail. The mini-post office also includes a realistic worktable, postage scales and post office boxes.
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Paleontology Center
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Paleontology includes a 4’ X 8’ ground level dig site, a Dino Tracks Footprint Display, a Dino Reading Nook, and an Expedition Tent. The Expedition Tent houses a Dino Rubbing Table, a Dino Fossil Display, a Dino Diorama Play Table, a Build-a-saurus Table, and a Dinoscape Light Box Drawing Table.
Children can learn what paleontology is and get to role play the duties of a paleontologist. Children are able to don work gloves and expedition hats to uncover duckbill and albertosaurus fossils. Fossils can be examined with magnifying glasses and measured for size. Children will also be able to compare their own feet to the footprints of five different dinosaurs. The dig area is surrounded by a large mural of the environment a dinosaur would have lived in. Take a break from excavating under the shade of palm trees in the Dino Reading Nook.
Children can enter the expedition tent to a collection of fun and interesting activities. These activities, along with the dig site, will incorporate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning into your child’s play. This STEM learning is a step toward readying children for the Next Generation Science Standards that will be implemented in public schools.
This exhibit is being partially funded by a $6,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Kankakee River Valley. The Bourbonnais Township Park District is very proud and excited to offer this new exhibit to the community with the help of the foundation.
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My House
We have moved our old coat room to bring you the new My House Exhibit. This house has miniature furniture made just for kids. My House features a kitchen, dining area, laundry room, living room and baby room. Children will love discovering all the hidden goodies in the cupboards and taking care of the puppy and baby dolls in the exhibit.
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Our Art Table has moved to a new location but it still features the same fun supplies that children can use to create fabulous works of art. The art area has an art rack that children can use to store their masterpieces while they explore the museum and a new display case that displays artwork done by visitors as well as from children who participate in our museum art programs.
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Wreck Resort Car Care Center 
Children love this new exhibit where they can write up work orders, dress up, sort tools crawl through tires and of course work on child's sized cars.
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LIVE ANIMAL ROOM-(Additional fee)
The Live Animal Room is home to turtles, guinea pigs, lizards, birds, and more. This exhibit is designed to allow children and adults to see and touch live exotic creatures, in a safe controlled setting. The Live Animal Room always has an Adventure Guide on hand to take out animals for up-close encounters. Due to the small size of the animal room, only five participants are allowed in at a time.
The Live Animal Room is opened daily upon request.
Animal Room Admission Fee: $1.00 per person. Children 12 months and younger are admitted free.
Animal Room Admission Wristbands are available for purchase at the Exploration Station Front Desk.
   
The staff at Exploration Station want the very best for our animals so all proceeds from the Animal Room admission wristbands will directly benefit our animals.
Many of the animals of the Live Animal Room are donations from local citizens, rescue groups and animal care organizations who weren't able to properly care for them. We try our best to take in what animas we can and give them a good home. Thank you to all of the groups who have donated animals, pet food, cages and supplies over the years!
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Patio and Ambulance Exhibit
During the warmer months don't forget to check out the Exploration Station® patio for more exhibits to explore! Outside the musuem are gardens and open spaces to explore. We have a flower garden with plants that have names starting with a different letter of the alphabet (thats why we call it our ABC garden) and during the summer we have veggitable and herb plants so children can see how food grows.
The Patio is home to the life sized Ambulance where children can climb in and explore.
The Ambulance Exhibit was at one time a real working ambulance and it was brought to the children's musuem by the Bradley Fire Department.
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Tractor Exhibit
Children have the chance to learn about farm life with the large-scale tractor exhibit placed on the outdoor patio of the Exploration Station®.
This exhibit is just the right size for children to climb in and see the world through a farmer's eyes. Visitors will love to crank the gearshift, turn the steering wheel, and look into the engine to see how it works.
Built and donated to the children's museum by Paul Cooper of Chebanse, the tractor is painted green and yellow on one side for those who prefer John Deere tractors and the other half red for Case International loyalists.
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And MORE!
We would love to show off all of our exhibits but sometimes there are just too many things to show. You'll just have to come out and see them all for yourself!
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