What's Inside for Kids?
Family Guides to the Galleries
Use these guides to Galleries to plan your visit. Look closer, think deeper, and get creative—together!
Ready to play? This guide is your blueprint to help you unlock your imagination and discover the Gallery of California Art.
Ready to take a trip? This guide is your passport to travel through time and explore the Gallery of California History.
Ready to explore? This guide is your field map to navigate around the Gallery of California Natural Sciences.
Yes, you can touch!
Check out all the fun interactives in our Galleries...
Coming to California Map
Show where your family first came from.
Coming to California Map
You are a part of the California experience—add a pin to show how you contribute to this unfolding story.
Hollywood Sound Studio
Create sound effects to match a movie.
Hollywood Sound Studio
Aside from the actors’ voices, most of what we hear in a movie is added later in a recording studio. Try it out yourself in this interactive exhibit.
Investigate Life
Use microscopes to examine specimens.
Investigate Life
Bees, reptiles, even small animal skulls! These are all natural specimens you can view up close here. Observe, compare, and decide why you think different species look the way they do.
Portrait Wall
Draw a self-portrait and see it on the wall.
Portrait Wall
Artists often portray people’s faces, lives, and identities in many different ways. How do you see yourself?
Animation Studio
Make your own stop-motion film.
Animation Studio
Before computers, animated films were entirely hand-drawn. Artists had to make thousands of individual drawings for even the shortest film! Draw your own characters and act it out.
Underwater World
Chill out and dive deep into this video.
Underwater World
See the breathtaking installation by Olivia Ting, combining video footage and photographs taken by divers who explored the reef at Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary.