Waterloo Region Museum Review

If you’re ever in the Kitchener area, and you are interested in learnig more about heritage of the area then you will want to visit the Waterloo Region Museum. We go several times every year, they have 2 homeschool events during the year which is a lot of fun. They are always fun events and we get to go at a discounted rate and it’s fun knowing that everyone else that is there are homeschoolers as well.

As soon as you enter the building you can purchase your tickets and they gift shop is to your right as well. My kids love the gift shop, who doesn’t, they have wonderful collection of olden day toys like tops and these aluminum robots, and wooden puppets, it’s fun in there.

I finally get my kids out of the shop and we head towards the main hall where we are greeted by an employee. She offers my son a scavenger hunt for him to complete and there’s a prize in it for him. This was the highlight of the visit. It got him engaged in the material and he had to search and read exhibits that he would not usually be into reading.

There’s a collection of clothing from the time period and my boys could care less about clothes so they weren’t too interested in it. However, one of the questions was in that exhibit so we had to search for it in there and found some other neat exhibits while we were there that I don’t think we would have taken the time to go through if he didn’t have to complete the scavenger hunt.

Another neat little thing that they added to a the exhibits in the main hall were these small stations of wooden toys that were on the ground and placed on top of small carpets. This allowed my toddler a place to explore and play while the older children were exploring the other exhibits and reading about them. I loved this. You don’t realize how hard it is to read something until your realize that your toddler has run off somewhere out of site.

Waterloo Region Museum Review

While we visited they had their Museum Mysteries featuring oddities from around the world and Street Style exhibit feature different clothing. My boys were not interested in the clothing exhibit, although they did have a Melissa and Doug doll dress up toy that my two younger children played with for a long while.

The mysteries exhibit was more hands on and fun, they had bugs and insects, fossils to explore as well. One of the attendants was trying to tell my son that one of the fossils was a bug but he recognized it as an ammonite. He knows is prehistoric history, he loves dinosaurs.

The Doon Heritage Museum is open seasonally from May 1 to December 23. We love the village, if you are planning trip to the museum, I highly suggest doing so while the village is open and there’s good weather. It’s all outdoors and some walking involved as well. As you walk outside you see the huge train engine where we had out photo opp. One of my younger son’s favorite exhibit.

You can then walk throughout the village and enter the homes and barns where they have furniture and animals and see how the homes were set up for the time period.

The best experience about the village is that each home/store that you enter, there’s a knowledgeable interpreter there to answer any and all of your questions. They are so knowledgeable and my kids had wonderful questions for them.

When you walk further into the village, there’s  a store, butcher shop, post office, tailor and blacksmith. The blacksmith was making showed us how he made one of his iron hooks, it really fun to watch and he talked and answered questions the whole time. We liked seeing the different houses and how they were set up. We  saw the farmers house and the another home that looked like they had more income. There was also a second bar with pigs and cows.

In the homes you could go into the basement or second floor depending on the home and see their beds, what kind of toys the children had which compared to the toys now was not impressing to my kids. I hope they gained more appreciation for all the stuff they have in the lives now.

Our favorite part of our trip to the museum was the area outside with all of the old homes and barns

If you’d like to visit The Waterloo Region Museum, admission to the museum is $10 for adults, $5 for children 5-12 years old and children 4 and under are free. If you’re a family with 2 parents, it is $25 for you and your children. You can also purchase a family yearly membership for $60.

There are usually two homeschool events each year, one in November title Homeschool Village Christmas and then another one in the year depending on the exhibit that is open.

I know they have recently had a shipwreck and circus exhibit which were a lot of fun.

Don’t forget to follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Disclaimer: I received free tickets for my family and I in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC regulations.

2 Comments

  1. I didn’t even know that this existed! I am totally taking the kids.

    1. Get there before they close the village, it’s the best part.

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