Entertaining Education
By Jessica Flynn

With summer right around the corner, parents are itching for educational outings for the kids—and the Queen City provides a plethora of fun opportunities.

Discovery Place (301 N. Tryon St., 704-372-6261) stretches the imagination with fun for the entire family. The museum’s interactive exhibits engage kids and parents as visitors are encouraged to touch various sea creatures, investigate the inner workings of the human body, and step inside a rain forest. Special exhibits frequently rotate through Discovery Place, and this month dinosaurs come alive in the new hands-on exhibit Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries, running through August 17. The colossal 6,500-square-foot exhibition includes a diorama of a 130-million-year-old Mesozoic forest in China, and even has a companion IMAX film entitled “Dinosaurs Alive!” playing in the museum.

Just a short drive outside of Center City, the Charlotte Museum of History (3500 Shamrock Dr., 704-568-1774) hosts a new exhibit that will allow visitors to continue their trek through time. Look, touch, and most importantly play with folk toys of giant proportion at the ToyTime exhibit running through July 27.  Wonder at the ingenuity and simplicity of these toys at sixteen wooden toy stations that utilize gravity, friction, and weight to entertain and enlighten visitors. Parents will recognize many of the toys on display, such as Jacob’s Ladder, Pick-Up Sticks, and Lincoln Logs, and children will enjoy themselves while experiencing a bit of history.  Visit the museum’s permanent exhibits while you are there to learn more about Charlotte’s heritage from eighteenth-century travelers to present day, as well as the Hezekiah Alexander Homesite, the oldest remaining structure in the county.