Children’s Museum a Holiday Hit

The Children’s Museum at La Habra is a crowded place this holiday season as families drop by with visiting relatives and friends.

“It’s been busy,” said Susie Hango, a La Habra school board member who works at the museum, a renovated 1923 Union Pacific Railroad depot. “School’s out and a lot of people have out-of-town visitors to entertain. This is a good place to bring them.”

Bill Noonan of the Dalles, Ore., agreed. Noonan, his wife, Lori Russell, and 3-year-old son, Jeremiah, were looking for something to do last week and decided to check out the museum.

“We’re here because, quite frankly, Jeremiah’s getting bored with the adults that he’s been having to hang around during this Christmas season,” said Noonan, 43, who is spending the holidays with his family at the Whittier home of his parents.

They chose the museum because “it’s safe and it’s a place where children can not only interact with the exhibits but with other kids,” he said.

On display through Jan. 26 at the 12,500-square-foot facility is a hands-on exhibit called “Faces: The Facts.” Children are taught to recognize emotions through visual displays showing different facial expressions like anger, sadness, surprise and fear.

The exhibit also encourages visitors to build a face from magnetic puzzle pieces and try on wigs, fake beards and glasses. Museum-goers also can discover why some people can cross their eyes or roll their tongues and why everybody has hair in their ears and nose.

In another gallery at the museum, an audio nature walk awaits. It features the sounds of 30 different forest birds and animals, including sparrows and whippoorwills.

Down the hall is the “Train Village” exhibit, which features a digital recording of rail travel from British Columbia to New Mexico.

The facility opened in 1977 as the state’s first children’s museum and today is the only one of its kind in Orange County. Museum officials call it a “hands-on learning facility where imaginations are stimulated.”

More than 200,000 guests visit the place annually.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. It will be closed, however, on New Year’s Day. The museum is at 301 Euclid St.

Admission is $4 per person; free for children under 2 years old.