The Creative Space

Come enjoy an imaginative craft or dive into our sensory bin!  Find new crafts each week, centered on a monthly theme.

Designed for the crafty and curious… we aim to provide a creative space in which guests can engage in a positive, hands-on experience, encouraging children’s artistic and imaginative development and expression.  Guests will enjoy a variety of guided and self-directed activities, with a range of tasks catered to different ages and motor skill abilities, with graded levels of complexity.

Salem Station

Salem Station highlights different modes of transportation throughout Salem, and provides a hands-on experience for children to navigate, explore, and construct.

Explore bridge engineering and construct your own projects with magnetic wooden blocks, create your own town at the interactive table, drive a Cherriots bus through town, or enjoy the electric train as it journeys through Salem!

Gilbert House is grateful to have worked with committed partners, Cherriots Trip Choice, Amtrak Cascades/ODOT, and our Share Tank donors to make this exhibit possible.

Forest Friends Toddler Room

Join in learning with your littlest ones in this room designed for infants and toddlers (age 2 and under) to play with their caregivers.

Recollections

Recollections is a colorful, dazzling projection that allows visitors to create vivid, full-size, time-delayed images of themselves. Combining computer technology, a color camera, a large screen projector, and a special retro-reflective screen, artist/software designer Ed Tannenbaum has created an environment that allows the user to explore time and motion in beautiful colors. Over 256 colors can be displayed on the screen at one time as visitors move and become part of a dynamic work of art. Photo by Ron Cooper.

Main Street

Our littlest citizens will explore big ideas in our newest exhibit! Young citizens can do their own banking, shopping, and more on the smallest Main Street in town! This exhibit encourages independent thinking, making choices, and practicing social skills.