Children's museums and science centers for kids around Dallas

These museums are chosen for hands-on: water tables, structures to climb, cockpits to sit in and dinosaur bones to dig, not exhibits behind glass. There's something here for a two-year-old and for a ten-year-old.

In the northern suburbs, start with Sci-Tech Discovery Center in Frisco: small, cheap, uncrowded, built for ages 2–12, and steps from the new library and Hope Park. In the city, the Perot Museum's Moody Family Children's Museum on the ground floor is a separate world for under-fives while the dinosaurs and earthquake platform upstairs are for big kids; across the street the Dallas Museum of Art is free with a family hands-on studio. Frontiers of Flight by Love Field has cockpits to sit in and planes landing outside the window. In Fort Worth, the Museum of Science and History has a whole children's museum floor and the DinoDig, and Log Cabin Village has costumed interpreters. Downtown Plano's Interurban Railway Museum is free, with a 1911 electric car to board.

• 7 places
• 2 free
• 7 stroller-friendly
• closest is 5 min away