Little hands, feet and imaginations are set free at Philadelphia’s Please Touch Museum, where parents don’t have to keep kids in tow. Freedom reigns here, as a 40-foot replica of Lady Liberty’s hand and torch, standing in the entry hall, suggests. This Lady Liberty is made from toys, games and other found objects, and the idea at Please Touch is that from the time they’re toddlers, kids learn by playing.
At Please Touch, that can mean playing instruments such as rain sticks and a bamboo organ in the Rainforest Rhythm exhibit. Or it can mean learning about urban life by working at a medical center, supermarket or construction site in the City Capers section. At Flight Fancy, kids get a full-body play session at exhibits that let them simulate flying, rowing or hop scotching on a cloud. Even the 20-minute plays staged at the Playhouse Theater invite children to join the action. When lunchtime rolls around, kids enjoy snacks like pizza and dirt pudding at the Please Taste Café.
The museum is housed in Memorial Hall, a splendid Beaux Arts edifice built for Philadelphia’s 1876 centennial. Details of that time turn into fun at Centennial Exploration. Visitors can push a cart loaded with Hires Root Beer, tap a typewriter and tour the recreated Globe Hotel dollhouse with its period furnishings and international doll collection. If the whole experience makes you feel like dancing, you can do that, too. The museum just installed the 16-foot keyboard that Tom Hanks danced on in the movie “Big.”