Learn About Us

Our Vision | Our Mission | Key Values | Diversity Statement| History | Location | Facility | Accessibility | A Green Building | Exhibits | Visitors | Outreach Programs

Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago offers 17 interactive, hands-on exhibits for children ages birth to 8. All of our exhibits and programs are aligned to the Illinois State Learning Standards and are designed to nurture a love of learning in young children.

Our Vision

Kohl Children’s Museum nurtures a love of learning in young children.

Our Mission

Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago provides engaging informal learning environments featuring interactive exhibits and programs that encourage young children ages birth to 8 to become effective learners through self-directed complex play.

Key Values

  • All Museum exhibits and programming are research-based to be challenging, educational, appealing and engaging to young children.
  • Parents, caregivers and teachers play a crucial role in guiding children toward activities that promote effective learning, while allowing them to direct their own learning experiences.
  • Complex play experiences involve a blend of physical, emotional, imaginative, cognitive, and social activities.
  • Trained staff using best practices in early childhood education enhance effective complex play experiences for children.
  • All Museum facilities, exhibits and programming are accessible by children in the same manner, regardless of differing levels of physical, auditory, visual, social-emotional, or cognitive ability.
  • All Museum facilities and programming model strong stewardship of the environment.
  • We embrace the opportunity for those with diverse backgrounds to interact and play together.
  • We create opportunities for those in the Chicago area whose geographical or economic circumstances preclude direct Museum visitation can still participate through interactive outreach programming.
  • Informal environments augment the more traditional, formal educational structure.
  • We create a setting that brings all generations of family together to share the early childhood learning experience with one another.

Diversity Statement

Kohl Children's Museum of Greater Chicago is dedicated to a culture of inclusion that inspires children to value themselves and the unique qualities in each other through the provision of environments and experiences that foster cooperative play, inquiry and self-discovery. The Museum draws upon the strength of its broad service area to achieve institution-wide diversity in all programs, activities and operations.

History

Kohl Children's Museum of Greater Chicago was founded in 1985 as an extension of the Kohl Teaching Center in Wilmette, one of four such centers in Illinois and Israel conceived by Dolores Kohl in 1972 and supported by the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation. Offering creative methods of enhancing traditional approaches to teaching, Kohl Teaching Centers provided training and educational resources to teachers and helped them incorporate hands-on experiences into their classrooms. Kohl Children’s Museum was founded to continue reaching educators and extend its service to meet the growing needs of families and the community at large through interactive exhibits and hands-on programs.

In 1998, Sheridan Turner became the Museum’s president and CEO and Dolores Kohl stepped away from the day-to-day operations of the Museum, expressing a strong desire for the Museum to be funded by the community that had come to rely on its services. With new leadership in place, the Museum’s Board of Trustees, led by Board Chairman Frederick H. Waddell of Northern Trust, conceived and realized plans for a new facility in Glenview, just five miles from the original Wilmette location, which opened to the public in 2005.

Location

Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago is located on an 8.8-acre parcel of land in the center of The Glen in Glenview, at 2100 Patriot Boulevard, Glenview, Illinois 60026.

Facility

Total square footage of the Museum is a 46,700 square feet, with 23,000 square feet of public space. An additional 2-acre outdoor exhibit space, Habitat Park, allows for Museum attendance to be less weather-dependent.

Accessibility

We think it's important that the Museum be equally available to guests with any level of physical, visual, auditory, or cognitive challenge. All public areas are 100% ADA-compliant. The facility and all exhibits have been designed using the principles of universal design, which go beyond accessibility with an approach that uses multi-sensory experiences as educational tools. These experiences allow all guests with any level of physical, visual, auditory, and cognitive ability to experience the Museum and its offerings.

Universal design simplifies life for everyone by making products, communications, and elements of the Museum's spatial environment easier to use for every child, including those with movement differences, reduced vision or hearing, or cognitive impairments. Special attention has been paid to such aspects as labels and signage, accessible routes, and positioning of interactive elements that will enhance the Museum experience for everyone.

The Museum has developed a Parents Guide to Kohl Children's Museum of Greater Chicago, in collaboration with North Shore Pediatric Therapy, to help parents and their children choose the exhibits they want to visit. The guide is available for checkout at the Ticketing Desk or for download below.

>> Download Guide: English or Español (.pdf files, 2.2 MB)

A Green Building

It’s important for us to be good stewards of the environment in order to maintain a world that our children can enjoy for many years to come. Kohl Children’s Museum has created an environmentally friendly, energy-efficient facility that has earned Silver-level certification as a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building from the U.S. Green Building Council.

In 2010, the Museum installed 217 solar panels on the roof of the west wing. These panels are expected to provide 7-8% of the Museum’s annual power needs. This project was underwritten by the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation; ComEd, an Exelon Company; HSBC – North America; and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Activity.

Signage and activities provide children and families with hands-on learning opportunities about environmental concerns in both the indoor and outdoor exhibit spaces, accessible year-round.

Exhibits

Kohl Children’s Museum houses 17 hands-on, interactive exhibits that support the strategic direction of the Museum as outlined in its mission statement and key beliefs. Exhibits include:

Visitors

Around 350,000 people visit Kohl Children’s Museum each year. The Museum has over 7,500 member families, who enjoy the purpose-built facility, 17 interactive, hands-on exhibits, and easily accessible location.

Outreach Programs

For many years, the Museum has reached out to underserved and at-risk communities through its Early Childhood Connections program, working primarily with Chicago Public Schools. The Museum is now able to offer its programs to families in Wheeling and Waukegan, and has also developed outreach programs on anti-bias initiatives and healthy lifestyles in 2007 and 2008. >> Learn More