The National Museum of Play® is the only collections-based museum in the world devoted solely to play!
The museum blends the best features of both history museums (extensive collections) and children’s museums (high interactivity) and provides families, children, adults, students, teachers, scholars, collectors, and others a multitude of offerings:
- Engaging, hands-on exhibits, plus fascinating displays of artifacts of play
- The great hall of the prestigious National Toy Hall of Fame
- Fun-filled educational programs
- Quality guest services, museum shops, and a food court
- A working carousel from 1918 and the Strong Express passenger train
- Upstate New York’s only year-round, indoor butterfly garden
- Annual memberships
- Woodbury Preschool for children ages 3 and 4.
- A circulating library
- Standards-based school lessons
- Teacher development opportunities
The National Museum of Play is an exciting, hands-on, welcoming place to play, learn, and dream; a place to pretend, wonder, and explore; a place to discover the past and imagine the future; and a place to rekindle memories and make new ones.
Situated at The Strong
The Strong is a highly interactive, collections-based educational institution devoted to the study and exploration of play. Through the National Museum of Play and its other Play Partners—the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the National Toy Hall of Fame, the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, and the American Journal of Play—The Strong explores play and the ways in which it encourages learning, creativity, and discovery and illuminates cultural history.
Museum collections
The collections of the National Museum of Play include hundreds of thousands of historical objects related to play, including the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of dolls, toys, and games. Tens of thousands of artifacts are on view in museum exhibits and thousands more are viewable online. Also online is the museum’s Play Stuff Blog. Visit it often and journey through the museum’s vast collections with curators who mix history with fun as they share memories and stories about their favorite artifacts.
