Every time you walk into a museum with your children you can watch their little eyes light up. The museum is a mysterious place that holds worlds of secrets, truths, and history. Here are seven reasons to unlock the magic of museums with your children.

1) Art Makes You Smart

Museums are curious places for curious minds to learn. The New York Times once headlined that “Art Makes You Smart” and a study conducted at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Northwest Arkansas confirmed that. They found that children who visit museums have better skills in recalling facts and better critical thinking skills.

2) Museums Are Now Specializing For Kids

Check in your area for museums built just for kids. For example, the DoSeum just opened in San Antonio, Texas which is a museum specifically build for the education of children. Not only do they have an enormous multi-story, indoor museum with exhibits across all subject matters, but they also have 39,000 square feet of outdoor interactive exhibits. These museums are not your “Don’t Touch That” type of museums.

3) Make Memories

Experiencing the unknown in a museum is priceless. Museums ignite the imagination because the exhibits are elaborate and they entice children to learn. Your child will carry memories of visiting museums with them for a lifetime.

4) Guide Your Child To Their Future

After talking with museum curators, reading about ancient peoples, and exploring new topics in history, your child may want to earn a master’s degree in history. Then some day they too may have a job with a museum as a researcher or as an educator.

5) Quality Indoor Entertainment

Do you live somewhere where rain falls in buckets, where it snows in inches, or the summers reach 102 degrees? Take your children to the museum where the weather can never spoil your fun!

6) The Museum Is A Cool Place

Museums offer exposure to the unknown. Just walk inside and you will see amazing contraptions powered by children, spaces for kids to gather and interact with each other while using hands-on exhibits, and families doing things together.

7) Real Discovery-Based Learning

Kids are tested to death in schools these days. School curriculum Is centered on teaching to the test. What happened to real discovery-based learning? Make learning fun again at the museum.

Museums offer dynamic opportunities for your children to explore and grow intellectually. Make your children huge fans of learning and the arts by visiting museums frequently.

The article was written by Kara Masterson, a freelance writer hailing from Utah, United States.