[photo credit: Kidspace Children’s Museum]
Both belong to Kidspace Campout, the season-long program that turns Kidspace Children’s Museum’s 3.5-acre outdoor campus near the Rose Bowl into a make-believe campground. The museum describes it as a celebration of summer, nature and exploration, sized for children ages 1 to 10, and it is included with general admission rather than ticketed separately. On Saturday, Aug. 1, it runs within the museum’s regular hours, and it stays active throughout August.
The camp concept runs across the campus. Children can pedal a trike “road trip” over a play Golden Gate Bridge and through a tunnel, splash through the water features of the Arroyo Adventure, and go “fishing” with a net at Winding Willow Lake, a blue-sand play area with a real boat and toy fish. At the Camp Craft Cabin, according to Visit Pasadena, young makers can build camp flags and adventure journals.
Three times a day — at 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. — families gather in the Stone Hollow Amphitheater for campfire sing-alongs. The museum is also opening a new permanent exhibit, Arroyo Pequeño, an extension of the Arroyo Adventure built around the ecosystem of the Arroyo Seco, according to Visit Pasadena.
Kidspace, a nonprofit museum, traces its roots to a 1979 Junior League of Pasadena project at the California Institute of Technology and opened its current Brookside Park home in December 2004. According to the organizer’s materials, Campout runs May 22 through September 13, 2026; the museum’s own public pages describe it as running through Labor Day weekend without listing a specific closing date.
The program also reaches toward neighboring Altadena. The Altadena Libraries’ Mobile Library is scheduled to visit the museum on dates including July 31 and Aug. 7, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. For families in qualifying assistance programs — including CalFresh, WIC, CalWORKS, Section 8 and CHIP — the museum offers an Access Membership at $65 a year, and it opens a free admission window from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. one Friday a month, with advance reservations required, according to the museum.
The museum is at 480 North Arroyo Boulevard and is open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. General admission is $17.00 for adults and children ages 1 and older, $15.00 for seniors 62 and older, and free for infants under 1 and members; the museum does not accept cash. Free parking is available in Rose Bowl Lot I near the Jackie Robinson Baseball Field, and the campus is reachable by Metro and Pasadena Transit. Details are at kidspacemuseum.org/calendar/ or (626) 449-9144.
Bring a change of shoes. The lake is only sand, but the water is real, and the campfire songs come around again every two hours.
