• Harvard Museum of Natural History
• Puppet Showplace Theater
• Museum of our National Heritage (Lexington): Free admission and parking and only a few minutes away. Interesting exhibits in the past have included wooden jigsaw puzzles and dairy cows. Check out with MONH to see when their story time is and other activities for kids.
• Discovery Museum (Acton): Check out both buildings. Little kids will even like the "older" building
• DeCordova Museum
• Children's Museum of Boston (Boston): Friday nights are discounted. Go with a friend so you can make it to the bathroom by yourself. Take the T if you’re up to a longer adventure.
• Boston Museum of Science (Cambridge): Easy to get to. Use pass from library. Big open space for kids. Rent 1 headphone and share.
• One Stop Fun (Westford)
• Gore Place (Waltham): Heard that hey have kid size snow shoes and a scavenger hunt for kids. Sounds good but check it out for yourself as none of us in the group had gone yet.
• ArtBeat, Arlington
• Claydreams (Arlington)
• MFA, Boston – Again, get the pass from Robbins Library. Have your child look for animals or babies in the paintings. Don’t expect to read the cards or spend a lot of time here but just enjoy the environment. They have a great room for nursing mothers.
• Hands-On-Art Museum, Littleton/Shirley – Art Museum for kids 3-7pm.
• Harvard Museums, Cambridge – Free on Sunday or Sat. morning, Animals, beetles, dioramas are great for little kids.
• American Textile Museum, Lowell – doll exhibit, tea party
• Lanes & Games, Cambridge – bowling for little kids. Go with a small group for more fun. They will put bumpers in the gutters so all the balls thrown will eventually hit the pins.
• KidsPlace, Belmont
• Libraries – Try other libraries. Waltham Library on Main St. has a train table and kitchen set. Concord Lib has a nice reading square.
• Greenhouses – Wellesley College, UMass, Gardner Museum or even Mahoney’s in Winchester is a good place to go to.
• Rainforest Café, Burlington Mall
• Full Moon – Arlington now has a play area and is serving lunch.
• The Mall. Even if you don’t want to buy anything you can walk the mall and bring your lunch and eat it there. A change of routine and scenery is good for all. My kids love the chicken teriyaki from Sarku at the Burlington Mall food Court.
• Toy Stores - Henry Bear’s Park, Belmont Toys or the Construction Site in Waltham are favorites. They all have toys out for kids to play.
• Book Stores – Concord book Shop, Barnes & Noble, and Book Ends in Winchester have nice areas for kids to read books.
• Perpetual Motion, Andover – Indoor playspace. Smaller than TotStop was but still a nice size. Four indoor swings and a sandbox. Climbing structure, ball pit, building corner, small horse merry go round. Easy visibility for the parent. They also sell a few lunch and snack items.

AT HOME

• Large and medium cardboard boxes to climb in
• Give them a ball of yarn to make a spider web
• Put food coloring in spray bottles (Walgreens) and have them color the snow
• Put different size dried beans in containers to touch and pour
• Give them a small bucket of water on the table with a towel. Expect them to get messy
• Put ice cubes in the kitchen sink for them to play with
• Put glitter and water in empty plastic bottles and glue the top on.
• Give them a wipe of wet cloth to clean babies, windows, etc.
• Give in and give them a box of tissues to play with.
• Give them an afternoon bath to play. Add shaving gel (comes in great colors) or foamy shaving cream and some foam and bristle brushes.
• Make in indoor obstacle course with stations. Climb under chair, go around table, here is where your baby sleeps, go to kitchen, eat one cracker.
• www.pbs.org is a favorite site of many people for getting craft and activities.

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