Outings to Museums Don’t Have to Send You to the Poor House

Los Angeles is a great city for museums. For parents, this means opportunities abound to give children colorful, vivid experiences to reinforce or supplement what the children have studied in school.

The admission and parking fees can be pretty steep, though. So I have done some digging and come up with a group of deals that will enable you to make a museum tour on the cheap. Some of them are so painless you may volunteer to take your child’s friends too.

The Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Gardens at UCLA provide an ecological trek for free, seven days a week.

Pamphlets near the north entrance help your child navigate through the 4,000 species of native and exotic plants. Exhibits include a desert section, a water feature, tropical plants, and plants from Hawaii and Australia.

The gardens are at Hilgard and Leconte avenues on the UCLA campus. For information, call (310) 825-1260.

There’s parking available at a nearby medical building, but it costs $5. The alternative, however, is taking your chances on the streets and lots of Westwood. You might luck out and find a free spot on Hilgard.

The Museum of the Holocaust, 6505 Wilshire Blvd., is free and offers validated parking.

It provides an unforgettable photo narrative of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and his campaign against Jews and other groups.

There also is a scale model of a death camp and photographs of many more.

Make sure your child is old enough to handle this topic.

Call the Museum of the Holocaust at (213) 651-3175.

The Santa Monica Heritage Museum, 2612 Main St. in Santa Monica, isn’t free, but with a $1 suggested donation, it’s a bargain. There’s free parking too.

Displays include historical design shows, art and toys. Also, each room of the museum is decorated and furnished in the style of a different time period.

It also has an extensive photo archive specializing in historic photographs of the city. Call (310) 392-8537 for more information.

The California Afro-American Museum in Exposition Park offers an artistic look at the day-to-day experiences of African-Americans.

There are two current exhibits. “Songs of My People” features black-and-white photographs of African-American life, and “Suspensions of the Heart” features a variety of drums. Admission is free. Parking costs $2 at a lot across from the museum. Metered street parking also is available nearby. Call the museum at (213) 744-7432.

The California Museum of Science and Industry, also in Exposition Park, allows your child to explore the practical (and fun) side of theories studied in schoolbooks.

It’s free seven days a week, but parking costs $2.

Permanent displays include computer graphics demonstrations and hands-on experiments. The current exhibit focuses on Antarctica, “the coldest, windiest, highest, driest continent on Earth.” For information, call (213) 744-7400.

A third major museum in Exposition Park, and a favorite with many children, is the Museum of Natural History. It waives its admission fee on the first Tuesday of each month. Parking in the lot is $2, but at less busy times you often can find a meter along Exposition Boulevard, so bring some quarters.

Children can keep busy for hours at the museum. The dinosaur fossils, the new insect zoo and the Bird Hall are usually big hits. There also are displays about U.S. history, gems and minerals, marine life, and African and North American mammals.

A new exhibit, “Encountering the New World,” shows what the Americas looked like when Christopher Columbus first arrived. For information, call (213) 744-3342.

The George C. Page Museum, at 5801 Wilshire Blvd., next to the La Brea tar pits in Hancock Park, is also free on the first Tuesday of each month.

The museum displays fossils of animals and birds that lived in the region during the Ice Age, all of which were excavated from the tar pits.

There also is a series of free films.

Parking can be a challenge. Look for an available parking meter before settling for the pay lot.

You can reach the Page Museum at (213) 936-2230.

The Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2437 Main St. in Santa Monica, is the priciest on my list--there’s a $3 suggested donation. If that’s still too steep, you are expected to pay only what you can.

A showing of paintings about the media’s effects on politics, by local artist Pat Ward Williams, opened last week.

Admission includes an hour of free parking. Call (310) 399-0433 to find out more.

The Museum of Neon Art, 704 Traction Ave. in downtown Los Angeles (just east of Little Tokyo), offers a novel perspective on the lighted advertising that urban residents often take for granted.

Admission is $2.50 per person, but parking is free.

Kinetic sculpture, electronic art sculpture and classic American business signs will delight any fan of art or nostalgia. Call (213) 617-1580 for more details.

If you plan carefully--and have a hawk’s eye for parking spaces--you can give your child a memorable adventure in learning for next to nothing.