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Marbles Kids Museum provides unique hands-on interactive experiences that inspire children to be creative thinkers, active learners and confident individuals.

 

 

 

 

We believe that children learn best through play and discovery. Our exhibits and programs are designed to build imagination through self-led exploration of new ideas and interactions.

Four learning initiatives guide the development of all exhibits at Marbles Kids Museum:

 

• Developing Creativity and Innovation
• Building Healthy, Active Families
• Strengthening Foundations for Successful Learning
• Introducing Children to Diverse People and Places

Marbles Kids Museum features five galleries full of unique hands-on exhibits.

 

 

MUSEUM GALLERIES

 

AROUND TOWN! Gallery –
a lively main street setting for young learners

Know a pint-sized future doctor?

Explore a miniature version of our community starting with a real CAT bus, head straight on to the local grocery store, and cap off the day with a performance “On Broadway” where kids star in their own imaginative productions.

Around Town! offers outstanding opportunities for young children to learn through creative play and exploration.

 

Brought to you by AE Finley Foundation

 

 

SPLASH! Gallery –
a world of imaginary adventure featuring water and nature

Splish, splash, soak! 

The properties of water provide endless fascination for children and adults alike. 

The SPLASH! Gallery is full of opportunities to discover, play and create with our planet’s natural resources. 

Explore an undersea world, invent water art, investigate the power of running water, and pretend to be a pirate trolling the North Carolina waters in a pirate ship! 

 

 

 

2·B·ME! Gallery –
a hip, artistic environment sparking creativity through self expression

Does your child's inner Picasso end up on your walls?

 

Then visit 2•B•Me!, where writing on the walls is encouraged alongside virtual adventure, on-stage performance and personal web publishing.

 

2•B•Me! features eight hands-on activities in performance, art, music and writing – all designed to inspire self -expression, build confidence, and spark creativity.

 

 

 

IDEAWORKS Gallery – imagine, design, construct using kid power

The new IdeaWorks Gallery encourages kids to design and construct what they see in their imaginations or follow plans, patterns and blueprints. Kids will be inspired to design and build structures, vehicles, simple machines and everyday products in this dynamic exhibit focused on creativity and innovation. Kids tap into the most powerful force of all, the creative force; to hypothesize, measure, construct, move, balance, tear apart and create...all fueled by kid power!

Construction and design-based play is essential to childhood development. It promotes cooperation, encourages creativity and innovation, builds fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination, and develops math skills such as groupings, addition and subtraction.

IdeaWorks was developed in partnership with NC State University College of Design and centers around four main exhibit components:

Go Zone – tap into the most powerful force of all kid power to see how simple machines work and move

Super Structures – inspire the inner-architect in every child while developing an appreciation for how infrastructure works and buildings stay together

Workbench – hands-on construction and building projects showcase the talents and skills of young learners

StudioSTYLE – bring out the individuality of children with endless opportunities to design apparel, accessories and more

 

HORIZON Gallery –
features our limited run Special Exhibits

FIVE FRIENDS FROM JAPAN – February 16, 2008 - June 29, 2008

With quality hands-on activities, vibrant interactive media and intense focus on cultural similarities and differences, Five Friends From Japan offers an intimate look into young Japanese culture.  Designed for children ages 5 – 12 and their families, the exhibit invites visitors into the daily lives of five Japanese children.

Visitors enter Five Friends From Japan through a classroom where they meet five Japanese students, the main characters of the exhibit.  From there, visitors are “invited home” to learn more about the students’ interests, families and neighborhoods. The central exhibit structure is furnished like a Japanese school and five living spaces around it are furnished like the students’ homes.  Interpretive exhibits in the classroom tell us much about the school life of Japanese children, while the more personal home environments reveal the economic and social diversity of the Japanese population. 

Five Friends from Japan is created by the Children's Museum of Boston and Capital Children's Museum and is a part of the Asian Exhibit Initiative, funded by the Freeman Foundation and administered by the Association of Children's Museums.

Five Friends From Japan, presented by Marbles Kids Museum, is supported in Raleigh by United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County, with funds from the United Arts campaign and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts.