Melbourne Museum (Carlton)

Explore life in Victoria, from our natural environment to our culture and history. Melbourne Museum is an exciting and innovative attraction which includes permanent and touring exhibitions, dynamic performances and events, cafes, IMAX theatre, gift shop, and undercover parking.

The award-winning Melbourne Museum houses a permanent collection in eight galleries, including one just for children. Highlights include a complete skeleton of a blue whale, the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, a living rainforest, the racehorse Phar Lap and an IMAX theatre on site.

Pauline Gandel Children's Gallery
Activities for Babies and Toddlers in Melbourne

Activities for Babies and Toddlers in Melbourne

The Pauline Gandel Children's Gallery is a fantastic place for children up to 5-year-old to explore, play and learn. Whether you excavate fossils in the dinosaur dig, explore the discovery garden, examine specially selected museum objects, dance in the 'camouflage disco' where children will turn into spotty and stripy disco dancing animals or get tangled in the climbing net, young kids will be captivated.

The Museum runs programs every school holidays.

Whats On at the Museum

Birthday Parties
Bring your kids to the Museum to celebrate their birthday. Explore the Children's Gallery or treat them to a movie at IMAX then bring them to the Museum Cafe for kids birthday party catering with party hats and birthday cake. There are three great party packages to choose from and lots of added extras available.
Birthday Party Details

School Holiday Programs
The museum runs a number of programs and activities during the school holidays.
School Holiday Program

Opening Hours:

Opening Hours

Cost:

Admission Prices
For a discount check out Small Ideas

Review:

The museum is bursting with displays to keep the whole family entertained. We kicked off our visit with a free highlights tour which was run by a volunteer. They can add a bit of extra information and focus on the most interesting aspects. Our kids were fascinated by the story of how the huge blue whale skeleton which beached at Lorne was cleaned of meat - firstly, rats were allowed to eat the meat off the bones and then the bones were dragged through sewerage to allow bacteria to do the final cleaning. Other highlights were the dinosaur area (of course), minerals section where you can see how much your are worth in gold based on your weight, 3D volcano, glow in the dark minerals and live orb spiders.

There are some other areas of interest such as a garden showing Aboriginal culture, a forest gallery with tall trees and animals and birds (including some in a stream), Children's Gallery which has play areas for kids aged from 3 to 8 years old (you can produce a puppet show with stuffed Australian animals or build a ziggurat in Mesopotamia or construct a Parthenon look-a-like) and an outdoor Children's Garden with old fashioned kids games such as hula hoops, quoits, skittles, stilts, hopscotch and skipping.

A heap of fun for the whole family at a very decent price.

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