Children's Museum of Maine in Portland

You don't have to learn a thing at the Children's Museum of Maine in beautiful downtown Portland. As long as families are having fun, this interactive museum considers the visit a success.

"We don't care if they go away without learning a thing, as long as they've ignited a spark in the group. That's what we hope to see," explains Education Director Marilyn Solvay. "We like to think that it's not as much a spark between the child and the exhibit but the child and whoever they are at the museum with -- whether it's their parents, grandparents or any caring adult in their lives," she says.

In fact, those caring adults are really the museums most important audience, according to Executive Director Terrie Rouse, "Because it's the adults who make the decision to come." "So when adults come into the museum they need to pick up the feeling, immediately, through colors, activity and sounds, that this is a fun place and that learning is going on here," she says. "Even though we call it a children's museum it really could be called something else - "The Discovery Place" or something like that," says Rouse, "because it's really for all ages." After just a few minutes inside that is easy to see. Inside the bright and airy hand-on facility in the city's upbeat center, parents, grandparents and children are all laughing, learning and making that "spark" the museum likes to see.