NEW ORLEANS FOR CHILDREN - Children Museums

It’s your vacation but why not go to a museum. There’s history, culture art. There’s air conditioning and plenty of it. The bottom line is: museums are cool. Even if you have little ones in tow, make it a museum day: kids style. . The kids won’t even realize they’re learning something.

LOUISIANA CHILDREN'S MUSEUM

For smaller children, the Louisiana Children's Museum is a great attraction. The hands-on museum has activities for toddlers on up to the age of ten. You don't need to tell the kids, but exhibits all have educational components. A new exhibit this summer allows kids to run a pizzaria, which demands a bit of practice with counting and dividing. The ground floor is an emporium of physics-based science games, from climbing ropes aided by pulleys to a radar gun to check the speed of your fastball.

There is also a theater for regular presentations and visiting entertainers and storytellers. The summer schedule is full of special events.

THE NATIONAL D-DAY MUSEUM

When the National D-Day Museum opened on June 6, 2001, it was heralded by the largest military parade in the United States since the end of World War II. Since then the museum has made a particular point of honoring veterans, having veterans on hand to share their stories and maintaining a collection of personal war mementos from them.

The museum features state of the art interactive displays following the history of U.S. troops landing on beaches in North Africa, Normandy and the South Pacific. The reason for the focus, and thus the reason the museum is in New Orleans, is the Higgins boat. Named for local entrepreneur Andrew Jackson Higgins, the special boats were developed for logging work in the swamps. But he converted them to a type of troop landing ship that was perfect for delivering troops to beaches, a new type of warfare used in World War II. President Dwight Eisenhower's biographer, historian Stephen Ambrose, launched the project and eventually drew major financial support from Tom Hanks and director Steven Spielberg. But now veterans are stars of the museum and several are usually on hand next to the last Higgins boat to share their experiences.

MARDI GRAS EXHIBITION AT THE PRESBYTERE

The Mardi Gras Exhibition at the Presbytere is probably one of very few museums with such a rich collection of fake jewelry. It presents the fake jewels from more than 125 years of Mardi Gras in Louisiana.

In one of the more light-hearted museums you'll visit, the Louisiana State Museum takes Mardi Gras seriously, documenting everything from the celebration's Pagan roots to Catholic adaptation to modern day New Orleans with all the costumes, beads, parades and more. Throughout the two-story museum, video installations show what Mardi Gras really looks like and presents the people who make Mardi Gras happen. There is even video from the private krewe balls and Cajun country Mardi Gras.

MUSEE CONTI WAX MUSEUM

With more than 150 wax figures, the wax museum combines the history of New Orleans in vignettes with a dungeon of horrors. While many scenes will be familiar, like the Battle of New Orleans with General Andrew Jackson and his rag tag army of volunteers, or Napoleon preparing to let go of the colony in the Louisiana Purchase, the Wax Museum depicts some lesser-known New Orleans history, like the state's first heavyweight prize fight in 1892 between John Sullivan and James Corbett. There are also more salacious accounts, like the depiction of voodoo, which presents a more Hollywood view of it.

The dungeon of horrors presents Hollywood's favorite monsters. And there is even a bust of popular former Governor turned convicted felon Edwin Edwards.