Electric Insect Zoo

Insects are among nature’s most basic and direct inventions: they are their purposes and tools Construct insects to discover the most basic and direct electric circuits: fireflys and glowworms that light, butterflys that flutter, crickets that chirp, grasshoppers that dance, fleas that tumble, flies that – well – fly, bees that buzz and more. Learn to organize, test and debug simple circuits in a garden of experiments.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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My Castle

We all have castles in our heads…pictures that we’ve collected from books and movies, legends and history. Start with David Macaulay’s pictures, your pictures, and our castle blocks. Construct walls and gates an the soldiers to defend them. Construct a Great Hall, a throne and a king and queen to rule them. Create stables and kitchens and servants to operate them. Create knights and horses and pages and armorers to serve them. Create the story that makes your castle yours.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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MoMA (Mia)

Construct your own micro Museum of Modern Art (with sculpture garden) that folds – artifully – into a portfolio case for easy transport. Create your own Picasso, Dali, Kahlo or Pollack paintings and sculptures after Moore, Giacometti, and Serra. Create a helicopter and designs after the Eames and Noguchi. See short films from the collection. All this to understand what makes Modern modern. The 5th in Amy Peters' Making Art History series.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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Cabinet of Curiosities

Before there were museums, a lucky few people had Cabinets of Curiosities (in Europe: Wunderkammer) in which they collected treasures of natural history and art. Construct a chest. Fill it with animals you’ve created guided by great artists: a lion after Calder, a horse after Chagall, a giraffe after Brancusi, a sheep after Moore, a camel after Klee. Collect wondrous ways to see and capture the world.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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Fire House

A Firehouse is a community’s emergency toolbox. Each of its trucks does a specific job in protecting people and property. construct atiny Tanker Truck to bring water, a Turntable Ladder Truck to reach high places, a Rescue Unit to unscramble accidents, an Ambulance to transport the injured, and more. All with flashing lights. Build a Firehouse – like a toolbox – to carry your Company.
With a visit from the Hamden Fire Department.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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Floating Toy Box

Everything excited Leonardo da Vinci’s imagination, but nothing more than water. It runs through the background of the Mona Lisa; it fills his drawings and science. Construct his boats that sail, paddle, and submerge. Construct his siphons and squirt guns. Follow his instructions for blowing and testing bubbles. Join the class in constructing and testing canals and dams. Build a floating vessel to carry your tools and constructions. And every day, find fresh ways to play with water.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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Menagerie

Construct a bear that cycles, dogs that leap through hoops, a horse bareback rider, a lion and trainer, a graceful elephant…all that ride in a colorful circus wagon. Train your constructions to perform understanding that no live animals will be captured, caged, or coerced in this entertainment.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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menagerie

Around Wld /80 Days

Jules Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days, not as science fiction, but as a story of the dramatic progress of 1872: the Suez Canal, and the cross-continental railroads that opened the world to adventurers and speed. Construct your own Reform Club and trophies from the Bombay, Calcutta,
Hong Kong, Yokohama and San Francisco of 1872. Join the class in building an 80 foot map of Phineas Fogg’s journey.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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Around-the-world

Big Ships

A hundred years ago, the industrialized world raced to build big, fast ships…the last of their kind before the airplane became king. Construct a grand Blue Riband Ocean Liner or an awesome Dreadnought Class Battleship. Build the colliers andtug boats that served them, the submarines that invented new dangers. Your liner can bring immigrants to a new world and entertain world travelers. Your battleship can keep the peace or restore it. Join in constructing oceans to share.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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big-boats

Sandbox Infrastructure

Construction machines dig, carry, dump, shape and pack soil to build highways, dams, levees, and canals. Construct the machines. Make a micro loader, dump truck, bulldozer, and roller. Carry them in your own mobile construction headquarters. Work in massive (shovel-ready) projects in our sandbox each afternoon to understand the public works projects across the country that we hope will restore our economy and prepare for our future.

  • Designed for ages 5, 6 and 7

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Getting Here

Wednesday–Friday: 12–5pm
Saturday: 10am–3pm
Sunday: 12–5pm
Monday and Tuesday: Closed

Phone: (203) 777-1833
Fax: (203) 777-1229

915 Whitney Avenue
Hamden, CT 06517

Map of Hamden and New Haven, surrounding the Eli Whitney Museum

For directions and a larger map...