# Children's Museum of Tacoma

A hands-on museum for young children downtown, with pay-as-you-will admission and a low-sensory hour on Monday afternoons.

Canonical URL: https://tacomairl.com/places/childrens-museum-of-tacoma/
Section: places
Area: Downtown
Published: 2026-10-25
Last fact check: 2026-10-25
Status: Not marked closed; check official information
Location: Downtown, Pacific Avenue
Address: 1501 Pacific Ave, Suite 202, Tacoma, WA, 98402, US
Price: Pay As You Will — admission is by donation, with no set ticket price.
Official information: https://greentrike.org/childrens-museum-of-tacoma/
Public hours: Friday–Sunday 10am–5pm.
Member-only: Monday 10am–2:30pm, and Saturday 9–10am.
Low-sensory hour: Monday 3–5pm.
Monarch Diaper Bank: Saturday 11am–2pm.

The Children's Museum of Tacoma is built for children roughly ten and under: hands-on rooms where the point is to touch things, climb on things and make a mess. It sits on Pacific Avenue downtown, a few blocks from the museums that adults usually plan around.

The unusual thing here is the price. Admission is **Pay As You Will** — a donation, not a ticket. Greentrike, the nonprofit that runs the museum, notes that this is the only admission model of its kind among children's museums nationally, and that it has been recognised with a national award from the Association of Children's Museums.

That makes it the cheapest wet-day option downtown by a wide margin, and the easiest one to leave early if a small person runs out of patience.

## When to go

Public hours are **Friday to Sunday, 10am–5pm**, which is worth checking before you build a weekday plan around it. Members get Monday mornings and the hour before opening on Saturday.

There is a **low-sensory hour on Monday from 3 to 5pm**, outside public hours, for children who find the museum too much at full volume. The Monarch Diaper Bank also runs inside the building on Saturdays from 11am to 2pm.

## Where it fits in a day

The museum is a few blocks from the [Washington State History Museum](https://tacomairl.com/places/washington-state-history-museum/) and the [Chihuly Bridge of Glass](https://tacomairl.com/places/chihuly-bridge-of-glass/), and a short walk from [Museum of Glass](https://tacomairl.com/places/museum-of-glass/). Our [rainy Sunday guide](https://tacomairl.com/guides/rainy-sunday/) pairs it with the aquarium at [Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium](https://tacomairl.com/places/point-defiance-zoo/).

For older children who want a museum rather than a climbing frame, [Tacoma Art Museum](https://tacomairl.com/places/tam/) and the [History Museum](https://tacomairl.com/places/washington-state-history-museum/) are both within walking distance.

Image: https://tacomairl.com/images/childrens-museum-of-tacoma.webp
Alt: The Children's Museum of Tacoma sign on Pacific Avenue.
Image credit: Photo source: Greentrike
Image source: https://greentrike.org/childrens-museum-of-tacoma/
Image rights: Website-sourced; reuse license not established
Photo details: https://tacomairl.com/photo-details/childrens-museum-of-tacoma/

## Sources

- [Greentrike: Children's Museum of Tacoma hours, admission model and address](https://greentrike.org/childrens-museum-of-tacoma/)