A group of Houston parents founded the museum with the hope of making early childhood development into a community-wide priority; and it now offers a variety of learning and educational services to a wide range of families.

The museum houses 14 multi-disciplined and bilingual exhibits and an auditorium seating 166, as well as a resource library for parents to aid with early childhood learning and development and also maintains programs reaching into the local schools, social service agencies, day care centers libraries, and community centers. It boasts of serving more children than any other youth museum in the U.S. per square foot.

Admission is only $5 per person, with special Free Family Nights every Thursday from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.

The John C. Freeman Weather Museum, founded and operated by meteorologists, opened in 1987 as part of the Weather Research Center; in April of 2006 the museum was relocated into a renovated 1930's mansion, its current location, in the Houston Museum District. This is the first and only museum of its kind in the United States. In 2007 the museum adopted “Radar The Weather Dog” from KPRC.

The museum has as its mission and goals to educate people about the weather, weather safety and to make people weather-wise. With this goal in mind, the museum maintains many interactive exhibits such as a local TV set up, WRC-TV, which allow visitors to experience the role of a weather reporter. Visitors can also find out of if there is a risk to their homes and communities from storm surge flooding which occurs during Category 5 hurricanes. The museum also conducts other educational programs such as Weather Camp and Weather Labs. To find out more about these programs, contact the museum for more information.

General admission to the museum is priced at a reasonable $5.00 for Adults, and $3.00 for Children and Seniors. Kids under the age of 3 are free. There is also free admission on Thursday from Noon until 4PM. There are guided tours available for a fee.