Just in time for America’s 250th birthday, the Bucks County Children’s Museum has completed renovations to help get young kids involved in the celebration.
The museum caters to children ages one through seven with a wide range of developmental and physical abilities, according to Executive Director Kelly Krumenacker.
The museum opened in New Hope in 2011 with an initial 5,000 square-feet of exhibits that five years later was expanded to 10,000-square-feet of exhibit space for kids to explore hands-on.
During a three-month shut down last fall, the original 5,000-square-feet was transformed with new flooring and new interactive exhibits including a supermarket, an auto shop, a hospital and the Revolutionary War-era play restaurant called “George’s Inn.”
“All of our new exhibits are very accessible and very inclusive,” Krumenacker said. “We have a lot of sensory-friendly areas that are low-lighting, quiet and that really accommodate kids with sensory challenges.”
They partnered with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and used visitor feedback to guide the educational goals and overall design of the new exhibits.
With just three months to complete the work while the museum was closed, construction of the exhibits themselves began in January 2025 and they were held in storage until it was time for installation in the fall, Krumenacker said.
And while the timeline was tight, they were able to complete the renovations in time for the semi quincentennial celebrations in and around Philadelphia later this year.
“We knew with America 250 coming up and how crazy it’s going to be in Philly and in the suburbs this summer, we really wanted to get these improvements done,” Krumenacker said. “Because 30% of our summer attendance comes from tourism and we really wanted to have everything in place to meet that summer audience.”
The museum welcomes about 65,000 guests per year plus an additional 3,000 kids on field trips that come from schools all the way up to Princeton and down to Philadelphia, she said.
Along with America’s birthday, more than a dozen other events happening in the city this year including the MLB All-Star Game and the FIFA World Cup are expected to bring thousands of visitors to Philadelphia throughout 2026.
“I’m really excited to be a part of it,” Krumenacker said. “We cater to young kids, a lot of non-readers or emergent readers so we really wanted to have a hands-on interactive experience that they could appreciate, that they could really be immersed in America 250 and celebrate it along with their older siblings who are probably doing very advanced programs at school and all of the other opportunities that these kids are going to have this summer to be a part of the celebration.”
Kids visiting the Bucks County Children’s Museum will now have the chance to pretend to cook in “George’s Inn” and be immersed in a foundational time in American history.
“There’s interactives that really show George Washington going through the countryside of Bucks County and his travels throughout Bucks County during that time before he crossed the Delaware on Christmas Day, 1776,” Krumenacker said.
“So we’re so excited to be able to pull that young audience into the celebration through this exhibit,” she said.
The $1 million renovations were paid for through a combination of private and corporate donors and a $250,000 state grant through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program.
A local Bucks couple, Dr. John and Jeanne Hubbard, personally donated $250,000 and were passionate about making the treehouse exhibit accessible to all kids, Krumenacker said.
Now, the treehouse is fully ADA compliant, she said.
“For kids with visual challenges, the new treehouse also has tactile learning engraved in the trees so they can use their hands to experience the exhibit,” she added.
Kids can also play in the hospital exhibit sponsored by Penn Medicine Doylestown Health “which really demystifies the entire hospital experience for kids,” Krumenacker said.
“I’m really grateful that we can cater to and present this new environment to all these young learners,” she said.
All of the exhibits embody the principles of the museum’s Unplug and Play campaign that launched in 2024. The effort is “all about getting kids to really immerse themselves in pretend play and get away from screens,” Krumenacker said.
“What we saw with kids coming out of COVID was a real deficiency in being able to pretend play,” she said. “There was a lack of eye contact among kids. We saw kids that were not able to cooperatively play or parallel play with their peers because they had been at home for so long with their parents.”
“So with the renovations, we really wanted to get rid of all the screens, all the computers, and really have kids use their imaginations again and not a computer screen and be able to have those experiences of making friends at the museum, playing with their siblings, playing with their peers, and just being creative again outside of a computer environment,” Krumenacker said.
And while they’re extremely happy with the new exhibits, they’ll still be taking feedback from kids and their parents about what’s working and what could further be improved, she said.
“Throughout the next 12 to 18 months we’re going to be tweaking these exhibits based on the kids reactions to what they’re seeing, what they like and what they don’t like,” she said “There’s always room for improvements within the exhibits.”
If you’re interested in a trip to the Bucks County Children’s Museum, Krumenacker recommends making a reservation ahead of time because they often sell out. They try to limit capacity at the museum to ensure kids are not overwhelmed and that they can use their time playing with the exhibits as opposed to standing in line waiting to play, she said.
You can learn more about the Bucks County Children’s Museum and book your visit on their website.
