Greenville Science Museum: Educational Indoor Play Space

The NC Museum of Natural Science in Greenville is not what you would first think of when you think about activities for you kids. Especially toddlers.

One rainy cold January day, I remembered driving by this odd looking building on Dickson St in Greenville that said something about a science museum on it. Kaitlyn and I grew up going to the NC Natural Science Museum in Raleigh which is fairly extensive and can easily take the better part of day if you have not visited before. Do little more than a google search to figure out where it was, we set off to see what this place was.

Not Bad for Greenville

Walking up, the building looked really promising with a clean modern finish. Some friendly staff greeted us at the door when we first walked in. She mentioned that there were only two people working there that day. We quickly realized this was a smaller building but still had great potential. The front room was very informational and had two different craft stations set up for kids. Clearly we were not the only ones bringing kids here. Madilyn was not very interested in the front room so we started looking around for another area.

Pirate Ship!

Slipping past the bathrooms (odd), you get to the back room. There is a kids play area and a pirate ship! And that’s kind of it. But a Pirate Ship! This was not intended to be a scale model but it was not quite a playground either. There was roped off access to get onto the ship. I assume this was for field trips and tours on busier days since it looked designed for people to play with. All the same you could tell it was a fun learning tool that got used a good bit. Additionally there were some other pirate exhibit pieces and a kids dress up. East Carolina University clearly tossed some money here with all the pirate items. If Madilyn was a bit older, I imagine we would have been around this area most of the time.

Instead, she found the kids play area. This is a padded floor area that has toys, books, activity kits and even a little slide. Madilyn loved everything in this area and probably would have stayed here all day if we let her. The Museum offers regular reading times during the week in this space. If we were stay at home parents in any capacity, I would be there every week.

Naturalist Center

For older kids there is a lab area (the Naturalist Center) that has an open invitation allowing you to get into any of the samples they have out. I imagine this is a great thing for older elementary age kids to explore all sorts of stuff. We looked in there, and realized Madilyn would break something in there if she looked at it the wrong way. So we quickly re-directed back to the play area.

There are some informational exhibits on global warming, the space stations and a few other things that are really neat. We did not spend much time looking at them since they were for people above the age of 2.

Overall

I highly recommend the Greenville Science Museum for families. It would be perfect to pair with lunch on Dickinson St. We will be heading back again in the future for sure. I hope the NC Natural Science Museum Network continues to invest in this hidden gem. We can see how it can really enrich the community around it.

How was your visit to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences at Greenville? What was your least/most favorite part? Let us know in the comments!

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