Art Beast

No holidays today, which was the perfect time to visit a place I’ve been looking forward to visiting in downtown Sacramento called Art Beast. What an awesome place! Imagine anything you could possibly think of that would stimulate a child’s imagination….and you have the Art Beast house. Let me break it down for you:

The lower room has a child-sized NASA Station, a puppet stage, an aluminum tubing “house”, dress-up clothes to your heart’s content, a piano, and a stage complete with musical instruments including a guitar and a drum set. 

The middle room has any art object on the planet! Paints, glue, crayons, markers, popsicle sticks, play-doh, clay, pom-poms, construction paper….you name it, they’ve got it. And if you’re worried about your little “beastie” making a mess? Don’t! They’ve got all the supplies to help keep things somewhat clean, although they don’t point fingers. I saw multiple children (including my own) fling paint willy-nilly. Nobody batted an eye. They even have an acrylic wall for finger painting! Here’s Cooper working on some of his masterpieces (come on…you like the apron! Very manly, yes?): In the backyard, they have different water and sand play stations set up, including a baby-washing station. One of the most intriguing was a water table with stuff that LOOKED like bubbles or maybe snow (not something an adult would run over and stick their hands in), but it turned out to be water-soaked paper towels. Who knew kids would be drawn to that? Here are some pictures from that area: Last, but not least, upstairs they have a few rooms set up for classes such as a drum class, yoga, dance, singing – and get this! They’re included in your daily entrance cost, assuming they have room (which I’d find it really hard for them to turn someone away unless there physically wasn’t room).

Attached to the art room is a house-type play area with a kitchen and bedroom. Along the wall they had this cool contraption with essentially a gigantic screw affixed to 2 lengths of wood. On the screws were washers which you could lift up and drop down, which would make them clatter and spiral down the screw. Simple, yet fascinating! I would definitely recommend Art Beast! What a fun place for kids to unleash their creativity and be in an environment where they can have total reign!