The Experience: The mission of the Austin Children's Museum, founded in 1983, is to “inspire young children and the adults in their lives to experience the joy of learning through the power of constructive play.” Judging from our observations on our visits there, the museum is doing an excellent job in meeting this goal. The Austin Children's Museum has always been one of our favorite places to take the kids. The small museum patrons love the “restaurant” area where they can prepare plastic food for the “customers,” (obliging parents and grandparents) and the train area where they can watch the train circle around the ceiling and press buttons to start it, run the wipers, and make sound effects. There is an Austin Kiddie Limits area where the kids can pretend to be musicians and see themselves on a television screen, or run the lights and special effects. There is a great construction exhibit where the kids can operate a front-end loader, build things, and drop parts down long tubes and send them back up. Right now the feature exhibit (through September 24th) is called Air Fair, which explores experimenting with air. It is a wonderful exhibit, better than any other I have seen there. There are fun features such as balls to float upon an air stream and balls to send along pneumatic tubes running along the ceiling to a receiving child. There is a nice toddler play area on the main level, gated off from the rest of the museum. Most of the activities in the museum seem to be geared toward younger kids (the preschool to early elementary years). Be sure to visit the gift shop before leaving, for a nice selection of unique toys and other items at good prices (there are actually lots of small toys for $2 and under). Be forewarned that some of the spaces and passageways are pretty small in the museum, especially the stairs up to the train area and the area around the base of the stairs, so it can be hard to make your way around on really busy days. The Austin Children's Museum was actually an editor's pick until a visit we made on a Sunday in early July. It was insanely crowded in the museum; I am sure we must have been violating some kind of fire code. It was literally almost impossible to find a spot to stand in without rubbing elbows with someone. I heard a woman in the restroom say it was the loudest place she had ever been. The children still seemed to have a wonderful time, but I noticed some of the adults (including me) were starting to get very edgy. The museum should possibly consider putting a limit on the number of people allowed in the building at once.