Chicago Attractions

The Art Institute of Chicago, whose stately lions greet guests at the main entrance on Michigan Avenue just north of Millennium Park, was named the number one art museum for kids by Child magazine. The Kraft Education center here is designed especially for small art aficionados in training, giving them a chance to make tangible connections with the pieces they see by watching related videos and making crafts. "Mini Masters" classes incorporate guided tours and free art projects. A family reading room offers a quiet place to share books, and artist visits and special annual events, including storytelling, treasure hunts and performances, are ongoing throughout the year.

The smallest visitors love permanent exhibits like "Kids Town" where they ones can work pretend city jobs like bus driver and grocery store clerk. Little archaeologists can dig for dino bones in a replica excavation pit, and even cooped-up urban kids can get a dose of green space in the indoor Big Backyard, which combines technology and art to create a fantastical Chicago neighborhood backyard that changes with the seasons. The first Monday of every month is free for kids ages 15 and under, and all Thursdays evenings from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. are free for everyone.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater -- winner of the 2008 Tony Award for Best Regional Theatre -- regularly stages family performances for very young theater-goers. Musicals based on Aesop's Fables and Willy Wonka were recent hits as well as teen sophisticates (abbreviated versions of Macbeth and Hamlet); it's an intimate-style complex here where it's impossible to get a bad seat.

Garfield Park is a 185-acre green oasis in the city's West Side urban jungle, compete with a playground, baseball diamonds, soccer fields, bike paths, pool and lagoon. The conservatory, one of the US's largest, is a delightful spot when it's gloomy outside. The park offers a variety of seasonal and free activities for children including scavenger hunts, nature hunts, crafts and discover digs.

The Lincoln Park Zoo has lions, tigers and bears living in claws' distance of downtown, plus a Children's Zoo that offers an up-close-and-personal view of animals that throws in a crash course on conservation. The Farm-in-the-Zoo is a working replica of a Midwestern farm complete with red barns that house cows, sheep and horses. Best of all, admission is free.

Four lavish malls and more than 460 stores along the stretch of Michigan Avenue that runs from the Chicago River to Oak Street makes the Mag Mile one of the best shopping strips the world over.

There's no better place to start your Chicago experience than Millennium Park -- the 24.5-acre, $230 million natural playground on the site of a former rail yard in the downtown Loop neighborhood. It became an instant favorite of locals and tourists upon its completion (a bit behind schedule) in 2004. Smaller kids get a particular kick out of tossing off their shoes and frolicking around the two 50-foot, glass-brick towers facing one another at Crown Fountain. Older kids love it too, especially when they watch the faces of 1,000 Chicagoans filmed for the installation continually flashed on screens on the towers. Periodically, one purses his or her lips and water spouts from the towers, making it seem like the person is spitting on the crowd below.

The park is also home to the stunning steel Jay Pritzker Pavilion, a bandshell by Frank Gehry (architect of Spain's Guggenheim Museum) with 4,000 fixed seats plus lawn seating for 7,000, where there are often free music and dance performances. Other highlights include the lush 2.5 acre Lurie Garden, which has frequent and free family programming, a seasonal ice skating rink, outdoor art galleries and a 300-space indoor bicycle garage.

Hugging the lakefront on the eastern tip of Grant Park, Museum Campus unites three institutions dedicated to natural sciences (not to mention some of the most important artifacts in the country) in one pedestrian-friendly setting: the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum of Natural History. It's also an amazing spot from early summer into fall to picnic and take in the skyline and passing boats. It's fun and economical for families to catch the free Museum Campus trolley that connects the three sites with other downtown tourist attractions and train stations. (It operates daily from Memorial Day to Labor Day and on holidays, and runs on weekends only the rest of the year).

The Shedd is the largest indoor aquarium in the world. The Wild Reef area has a coral reef habitat and the Oceanarium contains dolphins, sea otters, harbour seals and whales in a recreation of a Pacific Northwest landscape. Plan it right and the kids can catch a pool-side feeding session and kids can touch sea stars, crabs and other cool little things. The weekly Tots on Tuesdays program offers story times, crafts and animal touch programs specially designed for pre-schoolers -- a perfect respite for small kids who may not have the staying power to last elsewhere in the aquarium.

Sue, the world's largest and most intact skeleton of a T-Rex, resides at the Field Museum. (Despite her name, no one's sure if Sue was a male or a female -- her moniker is in honor of Sue Hendrickson, the paleontologist who discovered her.) Other permanent exhibits here include Ancient Egypt, with creepy-cool mummies and tombs, and an enormous Africa area with loads of taxidermied wildlife.

The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum was the first modern planetarium in the western hemisphere. There's a rotating roster of kid-focused sky shows and frequent family days, including "Far Out Friday" when budding astronomers can test out telescopes and chat up museum experts on the first Friday of each month. Former astronaut and nearby resident Jim Lovell has been known to stop in at space-themed events. In a weird twist, scientific research has come full circle at the Adler; the large marble panel in the lobby has eight bronze emblems representing each planet, with one noticeably missing. The discovery of Pluto -- the ninth planet -- was announced after the panel had been installed in 1930. But in 2006, Pluto was reclassified as a "dwarf planet," making the Adler's display up-to-date once more.

If you're visiting all three museums, plus some of the city's other big attractions, buy a Chicago CityPass (adults $49, kids 3-11 $38). You'll avoid long lines and get access to the Field, the Shedd and the Adler, plus the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hancock Observatory and the Museum of Science and Industry.

It can feel a bit like a tourist trap, but Navy Pier has some treasures tucked amid the caricature artists and Lemon Shake-up stands. There's a Ferris wheel, carousel, and boats-a-plenty to watch in the harbor, plus free fireworks every Wednesday and Saturday night. There is a rotating array of free, live performance inside: magicians, acrobats and the like.

Look for the silver statue of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, whose author, L Frank Baum, lived in Chicago. Sports facilities here include basketball, volleyball, tennis and 16-inch softball Dorothy's Play Lot has all the requisite playground equipment for little ones, and you can, of course, follow a path marked by a yellow brick road. Organized activities for children include soccer and tee-ball.