High recommend The Modesto Children's Museum to anyone with kids. I first visited as a teacher with…read moremy PreK/TK aged students during a few yearly class field trips. The kids LOVED the climbing structure and big slide AND the water room. The museum also has a light room where children can manipulate magnatiles and create colorful light projections. There's a shopping/store area where children shop, play in the juice bar area, and ring up customers. The air flow area where children can use air to make beach balls float and color scarves shoot through vacuum tubes and fly. There are a couple areas that alternate themes and activities. There are family bathrooms. There's a low stimulation room if your child needs a sensory break. This room also doubles as a nursing room. Every single employee is incredibly kind and helpful. I loved MoChiMu so much that I got my 1 year old a membership for her first birthday so now are regular and attended our first story time at closing the other night. We mostly stay in the little rainbows area that is specifically for children 0-3. They can climb, play with light projector to make colorful projections on the wall, manipulate the giant colorful light bright wall, read books, or rock or bounce on the other movement toys. The museum is probably ideal for kids when they start crawling and seeking movement to maybe 7/8 depending on the child's interests and developmental age. My baby loved watching other children and listening them talk and play at around 6 months, and now she's climbing all over the little rainbows area and walking around to look at and explore the rest of the museum. Anywho, check it out when you can. Yearly membership's go on sale sometimes too so look out for that. You can also get 4 free tickets once a year if you have an adult library card through the discover and go page.

Was a cute place to by 3 year old son! They have an area upstairs for just 0-3 years old and he had…read morea lot of fun. The water exhibit was definitely his favorite! For a Saturday there wasn't too many kiddos so it was felt very spacious and not too cluttered with kids. For $30 for me and him, I'd say it was a great price. Staff were also very nice and friendly!

This is another Valley gem that modernized but still maintains a relatively low-screen & low…read morefluorescent aesthetic. Medium sized but unparalleled exhibits on the local flora and fauna. Play area with magna-tiles etc. for the kids. Bring food, there are only vending machines. There is an inside eating area that can be loud sometimes but no different than the cavernous sounds of the Lawrence Hall of Science eating area etc. Prepare for a potential parking hassle. Since it's on the MJC campus either the lot is packed with student/staff cars or not. Not much to be done just be aware. Kiosk pay parking. Also- planetarium and First Friday's activities. I wish they were open Sundays.

Great experience! Kids will definitely love coming to see the museum and shows. For $5 per show,…read morethat's a great deal. I'm not sure if the actual museum is free because we just walked in after the show. They show tons of animals in their habitat and a gift shop. I can't wait to bring my little guy.

Elegant, unique, historical venue for a wedding. Paired with great weather made the outdoor-indoor…read morecombination just perfect for the intimate event. Added chic decor and great vibes made for a perfect evening.

Yesterday the McHenry Mansion had free entry into the mansion as well as carriage rides and crafts…read moreat the museum/park across from the mansion. It was decorated for Christmas which is so beautiful! The staff were very nice and helpful. It was quite busy but overall a nice experience! At the museum, they had crafts that my friends and I participated in. We also walked through the museum and it wasnt as busy as the mansion! We had a good day and enjoyed ourselves!

Railtown State Historic Park is extremely cool and fun for all ages! We got to stand on the caboose…read morebuilt for Back To The Future III, viewed the train smoke stack from Little House on the Prairie train, coal powered steam engines, and we saw the Well from the olddddddd show Peticoat Junction: We also were able to see some old trains including ones with wooden grates in the front, and lots of train parts!! He enjoyed explaining things to me.. For a very small fee you can take a ride on a train. Walk around the grounds and see old engines, workshops with all sorts of parts, machines of all sorts. A map is providing for easy understanding of the grounds. It is a trek to get across the grounds and would be difficult for someone with mobility issues. Both of my children grew up coming to not only this park, but to Columbia also. Our family has made many trips here over the years. We love combining, education, history and adventure. They host Christmas events here like the Polar Express train ride to North Pole. This was such a spectacular event I brought my daughter to when she was little. We watched the movie the night before. When we arrived in our pajamas for our VIP seat, we stood in line where we were lovingly harassed by actors. We boarding the train after getting a golden ticket! We sat in the back car. Actors were dancing and singing and chasing hobos off the train while we enjoyed a ride and spilled hot cocoa out of polar express keepsake mugs. Arriving at North Pile and seeing the elves and Santa pushed it over the edge for my young daughter. She was beyonnnnnd excited!! Will I return: We always do. There's something incredibly nostalgic about this place!

This review is strictly for the 'Polar Express' holiday ride…read more Our family had high expectations for the polar express train ride. We were looking forward to a "magical" evening for the kids but the experience turned out to be what a huge disappointment and waste of money!! 45 minutes of the one hour ride was a slow churn in darkness through unkept brush. for $80 a person ($720 for the family), it is an insult to people and to the holiday! Shame on these people! Wow!! Wow!! Wooow!! That is what we kept saying as we approached the 'north pole' which was some farm equipment with lights on them, crudely painted wood and cardboard cutouts of reindeer and other christmas figures, horrible lighting, and a couple of people standing in costumes waiving. At $80 a person, this is a complete RIP OFF! We all agreed that at best it is not worth more than $20, Avoid this scam at all costs.

This is a really cool place to spend the day with kids. The staff was very kind and helpful. They…read moreplayed a short film for us that explained how the fossils were found in the area. There are many fossils and replica of fossils. You guide yourself on a tour, they give you a booklet to use to guide yourself. Each station has information on the fossils, history,etc. There is an outdoor area with replicas of the homes of the native Yokuts tribe that was originally in the area. There is also an outdoor pond with plaques in front of each different plant that surrounds the pond. It was a really cool learning experience. You can pay a bit extra for fossil digging. There are 19 fossils to dig up, that can take about an hour. We spent about 3 hours there. They also have a cool little gifts shop area.

We've taken our dinosaur loving grandson there a couple of times and he is always delighted. They…read morecontinue to add sights and experiences as the exhibit grows and the excavation continues in the back 40. Go there and measure yourself next to the Wooly Mammoth and you'll be glad you didn't live when they roamed the Central Valley!

Lived locally for about 20 years, how did I not know this gem existed. Will make a point to revisit…read moreas their exhibitions change.

I have been coming to this Museum for over 40 years now, from school field trips as a child to…read morebringing my own son as he was growing up and now as an older person to just enjoy some art and spend some time in quiet contemplation. It's a wonderful resource for the area and a very important part of the community. Haggin Museum sits right in the middle of Victory Park. It's a beautiful, serene, green setting with flowers and a little pond and you feel safe here, even though you're in Stockton. It's a great place for kids to come and play and for people to sit and enjoy nature. Inside the museum there is a mix of art and local history. They have Gold Rush era exhibits and recreated period rooms. There are lots of lovely paintings here and although I believe some of the artwork is always here, they regularly have rotating exhibits as well so there is always something new to see. They also have a lot of activities, events and family programs here. It's definitely dated, but that's to be expected for as long as this place has been around. It's affordable though because kids under 10 get in for free and I believe the last time I was here admission was between $5 and $8. They also have a free admission day every first Saturday of the month but it gets really busy so I don't typically visit on that day. It's really great for kids though, and I'm so glad that we have this resource locally. I have lots of great memories of bringing my son and my nieces and nephews here and being a kid here myself. I definitely recommend a visit if you have kids under 10 and want to spend a day educating and enriching them on a budget. Plus they can play at the park after so it will make for a fantastic day.

This was definitely a fun stop on our road trip! The first floor is the shop, where you can sample…read morea few cheeses or get something like cheese pie at the cafe. But definitely go upstairs, especially if you have kids, to look at the exhibits on dairy farms. We honestly would have missed the stairs if we didn't ask somebody how to get to the exhibits. It's not obvious! There's also a little movie about cheese making that you can ask the staff members to start for you. We also paid $4 each to do the ice cream making at 11:00 a.m. My only real complaint about the whole thing is that the kids weren't able to see what ingredients were in their can before they started the shaking process. The staff led them through all these different shaking exercises, and then they got to open their cans at the end and see some ice cream. But it really didn't mean anything to them because they had no idea what was in there in the beginning! I said something about it to the staff, just asking them why they didn't have the kids look in it at the beginning, and they said it's because they usually do field trips with hundreds of kids..... But our tour was just around 10 people! If I could do it all over, I would have had my kids unscrew the lids to see what was inside. But besides that little pet peeve, I appreciated the staff giving information and a little tour of the exhibits, and the movie is also included at the beginning of the event.

A very solid 4 1/2 stars I haven't been here in years. Since I was in the area, I decided to…read moreswing by. Their cheese is very good, having won awards from the California State fair, to nine medals, including gold, at the 2026 World cheese championships. Yes, it's good. you've probably had it, but never knew it. they sell their cheese in bulk to food service providers, restaurants, and other retail brands that package and sell the cheese under their own names It's a great place. Everything from souvenirs, to snacks, wines, jams, Peet's coffee, they have a small café, and of course, cheese, cheese, and even more cheese. They do offer tours, but they are limited. However, you can ask somebody from the register, to come over and turn on the "Moo-vie." hosted by a cartoon cow, it covers the cheese, making process from farm, forward. Yes, it's a little "cheesy", (pun intended) but it's cute, and it's interesting. There are pictures throughout the visitor center, and they also have a small area upstairs, that also talks about the cheese making process, and you can look down into the factory. As I mentioned, there are lots of cheeses for sale. They also have samples. They have "squeakers" which is what they call their cheese, curds, many different varieties of their cheeses, and other gourmet cheeses from other companies. I bought a small apple, walnut, smoked cheddar, which was very flavorful, and then I also decided to take a gamble, and got a 1 pound block of Hilmar habanero pepper jack cheese. The 1 pound block of cheese cost under seven bucks. Extremely reasonable for such a good quality cheese. Yes, it definitely packs a punch, (hey, it's habanero....) but the creaminess of the cheese helps, mellow out the habanero a bit. You can also cook with it, like a cheeseburger, or scrambled eggs, etc.... And that also helps mellow out the habanero. it is definitely toward the higher end of what I like for in spicy, but it is definitely good. At the café, they actually sell a cheese chowder, which is supposed to be excellent. I don't think my poor system could've handled it, so instead, I got one of their grilled cheese sandwiches, the zesty tomato, which was Monterey Jack, sun-dried, tomato, tomato, basil pesto, on sourdough bread. Yes, still rich, but the tomato help helped cut the richness. The only reason I'm taking off a half star, was because the bread was a bit overdone on the sandwich. Not enough that I had them redo it, but I could definitely taste it a little bit. The amazing taste of the sandwich. Helped take away the overdone taste of the bread. A great place to visit, I will be back. Thanks.

Yesterday the McHenry Mansion had free entry as well as cradts at the museum, carroage rides and…read moremore! While visiting the museum, my family and I had a wonderful time getting info on the Stanislaus Libraries in the area, looking at Modedto artifacts and making crafts! The staff were very kind and helpful! Overall, we had a wonderful time!

I had always wanted to stop in at the McHenry Museum, but I never took the opportunity to go, until…read morerecently. The museum hosted an event right before Graffiti Night to kind of kick it off. It was a free event to go inside the museum, and outside were lots of classic cars, trucks, and a few bicycles!! I included lots of photos inside and out!! Well, they had another event last Saturday night! "A night at the McHenry Museum!" What a cute and fun idea!! It was great for all ages. We received a night guard evidence log when we checked in at the front desk! Right before that, we were welcomed by a greeter who opened the door for us. They had nine exhibits with stamps from the people dressed in period or historical costumes. They each gave a little demo or speech about the exhibit they were in. They were all so friendly, and interactive. It really made the scenes come to life! One exhibit was trying to get gold out of the clay rocks, to turn into the cashier for play money, which in turn one could "buy" real candy. I had such a wonderful time. I hope they do this activity again, sometime soon. It would be fun to know about it way in advance, so I could dress up too. That would be really fun! I did not find out about it until a few days before. However, I am so glad I went!