Category — Attractions/Museums

Taking kids to a museum in Los Angeles can be hit or miss, depending on what kind of museums you visit and what mood your kids are in. Los Angeles might be known for glitz, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that the city is superficial. Your vacation in L.A. can be as educational as you make it. If your kids are in a good mood for adventure and learning, check out these museums:

Page Museum La Brea Tar Pits (5801 Wilshire Boulevard): Where else can you find the piece of history in the middle of the city? The Page Museum hosts one of the largest collection of Ice Age fossils, and that collection is still growing. Kids will love to walk in the park to check out the many tar pit displays. Stop by Pit 91 and you can see what the archeologist have to do to in order to get all of those fossils. Nearby, you can stay in Le Parc Suites hotel in Hollywood.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (5905 Wilshire Boulevard): This art museum knows how to take care of family with kids — it was even voted one of the ”10 Best Art Museums for Kids” by Parents magazine. There are various programs available throughout the year and kids can bring adults in to visit for free. Plus, it’s located right next door to the Page Museum. Another option for a place to stay while visiting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the Petit Ermitage in Hollywood.

Griffith Park Observatory (2800 East Observatory Avenue): Part museum, part observatory, part planetarium – The Griffith Park Observatory will satisfy everyone in the family. Kids seem to be especially mesmerized by the Foucault pendulum at its entrance. As the saying goes, “the best things in life are free.”  You got it.  The best thing about the Griffith Park Observatory is that the admission is free for all.  Though, you will have to pay to watch the planetarium show. It’s just a quick car ride from the kid-friendly Magic Castle Hotel.

See my full ariticle at Oyster Locals.

A visit to Los Angeles with kids will not be complete if we didn’t visit the Page Museum – La Brea Tar Pits. It’s one of the best things to do with kids in Los Angeles. I have read about this museum from other travel blogger and put it on our to-do list for our quick jaunt to Los Angeles. After a fun day at the El Capitan theatre, it’s time for a bit of educational trip for the kids.

The Page Museum AKA the Ice Age Museum

The Page Museum La Brea Tar Pits is a research and educational facility and one of the best museum with the most extensive collection of extinct Ice Age fossils.

It helps that our kids have watched the Ice Age movies countless times. So it’s nice to be able to point out the extinct animals and they were able to make a connection. It took quite sometimes for them to grab the concept of ‘extinction’ because they still can see it on TV.

Perfect Size Museum for Kids

We went there during the weekday so it was very easy to find parking along the street. There is also parking inside the park and you can get the discount when you purchased museum admission tickets.

The museum itself is only one story. But the display and exhibition is very adequate to give you the knowledge about the ice age creatures.

With small size, it allows kids to remain engage without getting bored with the display.

The Coolest Things to See at The Page Museum

One of the coolest part of the Page Museum at La Brea Tar Pits has to be the Fish Bowl. The Fish Bowl is the area where researchers are working on the on-going project at the tar pits mostly cleaning and cataloging the fossils.

Kids (and adults) were mesmerized by the whole thing. (I don’t think I can work in that fish bowl. Too much pressure with people watching.) They were able to see how scientists and volunteers are working and cleaning those fossils. We also stopped by the theatre room to watch the short movie about the history of the Page Museum. It’s very fun and engaging and I highly recommend it. It will provide you with the background and history of the museum in a quick and fun way.

The Active Tar Pits in the City

After we walked around the Page Museum, we headed out to the most popular spot in the whole park – Tar Pits in Hancock Park. The Tar Pit give us a glimpse to the real Indiana Jones wanna-be like myself. We visited in Fall so there was no working excavation going on at that moment.

Kids get a chance to see how the real tar pits look like as there are many fenced-off tar pits all around the Hancock Park. However, the most well-known one is Pit 91. Pit 91 is tar pit that has been reopened in 1969 and the excavation work continues until today. We saw the area where the volunteers carefully excavated specimen inch by inch during the Summer.

New Discovery at Rancho La Brea- Project 23

However, the work in Pit 91 is temporarily suspended. In 2006, there was a new discovery of new fossils during the parking garage construction. Twenty three boxes of asphaltic deposits were moved to the Page Museum for further work. Hence, Project 23 is born. The name of Project 23 came from the 23 extract crates.

So far, they have discovered over 700 measured specimens including a large pre-historic American Lion skull, lion bones, dire wolves, saber-toothed cats, juvenile horse and bison, teratorn, coyotes, lynx, and ground sloths. For the current news and update, check out the Excavatrix blog.

It was a great fun day with our kids. They really enjoyed the visit. I think the Page Museum La Brea Tar Pit is one of the coolest place to visit in Los Angeles with kids.

Disclaimer: We paid for our own admission tickets. I will always let you know if I receive the complimentary tickets. And there will never be any outside influence on how I write my post.

Check out other Travelers Photo at Delicious Baby.

Visiting Los Angeles with kids  was one of the last minute add-on itinerary to our week long visit to the West Coast. We didn’t plan to spend a lot of time in Los Angeles because we had so many things to do in San Diego from theme parks, zoo, museum and beach. But one of the plan that I added to our things to do in Los Angeles and looked forward to doing was watching a show in the El Capitan theatre.

The El Capitan theatre is one of the fully restored movie palaces in Hollywood. It was one of the original 3 theatres envisioned by Charles E. Toberman and Sid Grauman to create Hollywood theatre district in the early 1920s.  After the years of ups and downs, it’s currently operated by the Walt Disney company. Did I just say DISNEY? Yes, it’s the venue for many of Walt Disney Pictures‘ movie premiere. It’s a perfect place for kids to experience different kind of movie going.

The theatre itself is nicely decorated with all the detail. It makes you feel like you step back in time to the old glory day of Hollywood. The staffs were attentive and very helpful.

One of the thing I always love about watching a movie at this kind of movie palace is the pre-show. Kids enjoy listening to the live music which I think much better than just watching the advertising on the screen.

We went there during Thanksgiving and we were able to enjoy Holiday Spectacular pre-show. I think I was enjoying the show more than the movie itself.

After the show, we also walked around and checked out the display of the behind-the-scene information about the movie. We even saw some of the costumes used in the movie. Yes, it’s the 3-D movie but I guess they will need the real costumes to make it more realistic.

The ticket cost might seem to be steeper than your typical movie ticket but I think it’s well worth the experience for a visit on special occasion.

After you exit and still want more Disney experience, you can stop by Disney’s Soda Fountain and Studio Store for some quick snack and shopping.

Disclaimer: We paid for our tickets ourselves but we were very lucky to receive 2 free tickets from a complete stranger while we were waiting in line at the box office to a VIP section. So we only bought 2 extra tickets for our family.

Check out other travelers Photo Friday at Delicious Baby.