Come experience hands-on learning!
Hands-on House offers a variety of interactive exhibits rooted in STEM, trade-careers, and imagination.
Check out our line-up below!
The Village
Our latest learning space and a fresh take on the market exhibits we’ve had over the years! The Village features a beautifully crafted grocery market, vets' office, ice cream truck, and post office.
Here, imaginative play meets actionable education. Versatile prompts, custom made by our team of educators, guide children and their grown-ups through skills like:
- Color ID and matching
- Money management
- Addition + subtraction
- Kindness to animals
- Telling time
- Mail vocabulary
- Map reading
The Village farm
Lancaster PA is known for its hard-working farmers, agricultural landscape and charm which makes our Village Farm the perfect space for children to learn about this inspiring industry. With a life-sized tractor, a 2-story barn, interactive animal figures, hen house, and apple tree children can play while learning skills like:
- Counting
- Categorizing
- Animal care
The Tech Lab
Movement, sound, and creativity are center stage in our tech lab! The Tech Lab features a Draw-Alive station where children can color a picture, scan it to our giant TV, and watch their drawing come to life in an animated scene. Coloring pages and scenes change every week ranging from under the sea, dinosaurs, etc. The Tech Lab also features a piano, jumbo lite bright (quite the throwback), robotic arm, and floor games. These stations emphasis skills like:
- Hand-eye coordination
- Problem solving
- Estimation
- Music and sound
- Pattern recognition
- Color ID and artistic expression
The ABC Construction Zone
Hands-on House specializes in trade-based education and our construction zone is the perfect place for children to explore these essential fields. Children can try on construction gear, interact with a functional crane, learn about hive-building worker bees, and explore a 2-story structure featuring masonry, carpentry, painter, and tool stations. The Amazing Airways wall (arguably one of the favorite spots to play in the whole museum) is a large channel of overlapping tunnels with a mechanism where children can alter the air current inside! In the construction zone we focus on teaching skills like:
- Problem solving
- Engineering
- Critical thinking
- Communication
- Trial and error navigation
Mason's Active Adventure Garden
Mason’s Active Adventure Garden was founded in 2011 and is maintained through an on-going gift from the Georgelis family to remember their son, Mason. The mission? To provide a place for families to play actively together. This outside space features slides, tunnels, a pirate ship, sand pit, playhouse, outdoor reading space, a STEM nature trail, and a maze to wind your way through. We also host several sessions of summer camp here! Masons Active Adventure Garden highlights skills such as:
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Problem solving
- Conservation and sustainability
The Play Lab
A space for self-guided learning with themed activities that rotate on a monthly basis. Here, children can hone their creative skills and let curiosity lead. The Play Lab has a teacher present at all times who can offer engagement ideas and demonstrations with materials. You can look forward to playful STEM challenges, mixing and measuring stations, playdough, blocks, sensory bins, and more!
Summer Hours: June 17th -September TBD
Monday: 1-4pm
Tuesday: 1-4pm
Wednesday: 1-4pm
Thursday: 1-4pm
Friday: 1-4pm
Saturday + Sunday: Closed
Exhibits are only half the fun!
Come enjoy camps, workshops, and free-with-admission classes.
